Maureen Dowd

When Myths Collide in the Capital

nytimes.com — WASHINGTON THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show "Scandal" as damage control that goes like this: "It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's old news."

As Time Goes Bye

nytimes.com — In 1981, I started working in the Washington bureau of the newsmagazine famously mocked by The New Yorker's Wolcott Gibbs for its inverted Homeric style. "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind," Gibbs satirized. "Where it all will end, knows God!" I thought my first Monday morning story conference would be my last.

Repent, Dick Cheney

nytimes.com — Dick Cheney certainly gives certainty a black eye. In a documentary soon to appear on Showtime, "The World According to Dick Cheney," America's most powerful and destructive vice president woos history by growling yet again that he was right and everyone else was wrong. R. J.

How Mary Feels About Being a Virgin

nytimes.com — The lyrical Irish author wrote "Brooklyn" about the aching loneliness of a young Irish woman who emigrates to New York in the '50s to find work. In a short story called "A Priest in the Family," part of a collection called "Mothers and Sons," Toibin conjures a proud, elderly Irish mother who learns that her son, a priest, is pleading guilty to sex abuse charges.

Get Off of Your Cloud

nytimes.com — When Marissa Mayer became queen of the Yahoos last summer, she was hailed as a role model for women. The 37-year-old supergeek with the supermodel looks was the youngest Fortune 500 chief executive. And she was in the third trimester of her first pregnancy.

Pompom Girl for Feminism

nytimes.com — SHERYL SANDBERG is not one to settle for being the It Girl of Silicon Valley. Nor is the chief operating officer of Facebook willing to write a book that people might merely read. One of her friends from her Harvard days told Vogue that the brainy, beautiful, charming, stylish, happily married 43-year-old mother of two, one of the world's richest self-made women, has an "infectious insistence."

The Oscar for Best Fabrication

nytimes.com — I SAW "Argo" with Jerry Rafshoon, who was a top aide to President Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis, when six Americans escaped and were given sanctuary for three months by courageous Canadian diplomats. We were watching a scene where a C.I.A.

I’m Begging, Don’t Hack the Hacks

nytimes.com — I SPENT a long time looking at W.'s sprezzatura in the shower, the play of light and shadow on his muscular back, and his face winsomely reflected in the shaving mirror. I gazed at the former president's legs and toes in the bathtub, overcome with relief that W.

Sheriff Andy of Albany

nytimes.com — WHEN he was a young henchman for his father in Albany, Andrew Cuomo gave intensity a bad name. Now that he is New York's governor himself, Cuomo gives intensity a good name. In the old days, that dark zeal was scattered around, directed at anyone who insulted or crossed him.

Takes One to Tango

nytimes.com — President Standoffish doesn't want to be seen as a stiff. "Most people who know me know I'm a pretty friendly guy," he protested at his White House press conference on Monday. "And I like a good party." Maybe. But the president always seems to be dancing alone.