We ask because a very curious couple of sentences end the popular writer’s column today:

And, unlike Obama, she doesn’t need to talk herself into manning up. Obama whiffed in the debate last night when Brian Williams and Tim Russert teed up the first question for him to take on Hillary — something the debate dominatrix never would have done.

The implication here is that Obama performed poorly overall in the debate last night and once again failed to challenge Clinton. However, if Dowd had watched the whole performance, she would have seen Hillary lose ground to Obama, Edwards and even Christopher Dodd. Sadly, Dowd’s filing deadline was probably too early for her to tell the full story, but that’s no excuse for bad journalism.