Niall O’Dowd of Irish News spent “a few hours in the back of a midtown Manhattan restaurant with Maureen [Dowd] and her sister Peggy” and pronounces it, in a flattering profile, “akin to catching up with relatives in a snug bar in the west of Ireland.” Writes O’Dowd:
Dowd’s meteoric rise to the top of the media pile was achieved through sheer dint of hard work and an unerring eye for the critical detail that everyone else was missing. Along the way she has ended forever the cozy view of women writers as softly-softlys who leave the meaty stuff to the men.
Of course in Dowd’s columns it’s usually the men who are “softly-softlys” and the women who are (way too) “meaty…” But hey, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day! Pull up a stool and read the entire piece. Maybe you’ll meet, as the the headline promises, “The Maureen You’ve Never Seen.”
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.