It looks like we have another reason to love Gail Collins. Remember last week when the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, after being inundated with complaints of sexist coverage at the Time that "often boiled down to" Dowd, called MoDo out for going "over the top" in her election year columns. And then Dowd responded by saying, actually, I've been "twisting" gender sterotypes for years before going on to skewer both Carla Bruni, disgruntled Hillary supporters, and Bill Clinton's "self-pitying meltdown." Well it looks like Collins, who was once the editorial page editor herself, did not take too kindly to Hoyt's "assault."

As a Times columnist, I never envisioned myself writing a letter to a fellow resident of the paper's opinion section. But I feel compelled to respond to your assault on Maureen Dowd. Your complaint about Maureen seems to be that many supporters of Hillary Clinton found her columns offensive. As a former editorial page editor, I can absolutely assure you that supporters of many, many candidates from both parties have found Maureen's columns offensive over the years...When the public editor laces into an opinion page columnist for making fun of a controversial political figure, it sounds like a suggestion that all of us tone things down. I hope I'm hearing wrong.