New York Times spokesperson Diane McNulty:

There is no need to do anything further since there is no allegation, hint or anything else from Marshall that this was anything but an error. It was corrected. Journalists often use feeds from other staff journalists, free-lancers, stringers, a whole range of people. And from friends. Anyone with even the most passing acquaintance with Maureen's work knows that she is happy and eager to give people credit.

As Politico's Michael Calderone notes, the fact that Marshall hasn't lodged any further complaints doesn't mean anything about anything. Whether or not Maureen Dowd did something wrong is not dependent upon whether Josh Marshall says she did.

But that bit about Dowd being “happy and eager to give people credit” caught my eye, because just moments earlier, I read Tucker Carlson's comments during a Washington Post online discussion:

[T]he whole thing is an interesting window into how her column is created. I knew someone once who was on her call rotation. Every week, she'd call and collect amusing lines from him, which she'd invariably use without attribution. Every writer does this to some extent -- I've made a lot of money over the years stealing from my conversations with Matt Labash -- but she seems to do it more than most.

So which is it? Is Dowd “happy and eager to give people credit,” or does she rely more than most writers on the attribution-free use of lines told to her by others?

Earlier: How would the NYT react if Joe Biden gave an excuse this lame?