Ask the Editors:

Forget Waldo. Where's Maureen Dowd?

Q. Just explain where Maureen Dowd has been for over a month. I have written to her and to the editors with no explanation. I may have to resort to reading her Vanity Fair Tina Fey article a third time just for my wordsmithing fix.

— Kendra Wagner, Seattle

A. I have been deluged by the collective wailing of readers_{MR SUBLIMINAL Squeaky wheels. I thought the quiet was great!} for the last month: Where is Maureen Dowd? I, too, have found it hard to live without her column these past weeks. (Hey, the Tina Fey piece was great, but it wasn't a substitute). She's been off, time deserved after a political year in which she often worked without any days off and did so much great reporting and writing. And.....She'll be back on the Op-Ed page. Starting tomorrow. Nice to be able to spread the good news.

Oh, and the rewriting history part. On WMD, Abramson burbles:

I believe The Times and other news organizations that published stories based on the faulty intelligence have become properly skeptical and have done the digging necessary to truth-test the government's intelligence claims and to expose false claims. In 2005, we published stories, based on the excellent investigative reporting of Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau, about the government's secret surveillance program, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Er, no. Abramson appears to shift dates to avoid culpability, and falsifies by omission. The fact that she conveniently leaves out is that Bill Keller suppressed Risen's story until December 16, 2004, after Bush had been safely elected. Of this decision, in which Abramson was involved, Times Public Editor Bryan Calame wrote:

Eavesdropping and the Election: An Answer on the Question of Timing
But contradictory post-publication comments by Times editors and others about just how long the article was held have left me increasingly concerned about one key question: Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?

But I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December.

Sure, four more years of Bush. But our Jill can still buff that Pulitzer!

NOTE You can mail your questions askthetimes [at] nytimes [dot] com (here).