MAUREEN DOWD IS READING BLOGS, but not, alas, learning from them.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs is running a reader contest, asking people to Dowdify Dowd! Examples:

“Blogs … overrun … the establishment.”

“James Joyce … Now there’s a man with a future in blogging.”

Of course, if it were actually Dowd, the ellipses would be omitted.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon says that Dowd is right — the politicians’ blogs she writes about stink. Well, yeah. But sadly, most of Dowd’s criticisms also apply to her own, increasingly stale and formulaic, columns — something that lots of other blogs have been pointing out for quite a while.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Daniel Drezner points out:

What’s most significant about this essay is Dowd’s revealed preferences about the world. What matters to her is not whether a phenomenon is important, but whether it’s trendy. In the world of pop culture, this sort of distinction makes a kind of sense. In the world of politics or international relations, it doesn’t.

True.