Is Maureen Dowd Necessary?

In today's column for the New York Times, Maureen Dowd remarks that "Hillary aced her Senate hearing," adding:

She was on top of all the issues, no matter how obscure. She batted around our “stale” arctic policy — who knew? — with Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who doesn’t seem to realize we’re sick of Alaska.

"Obscure?" "Who knew?" Really?

Russia's land grab in the Arctic was on the front page of the paper Dowd writes for and also made the cover of the Economist. A search for "russia arctic flag seabed 2008" on the New York Times website yields 156 results. "Russia arctic flag" on Google gets more results than "Maureen Dowd." The event has important implications for both our relationship with Russia and the future of energy security. You know, the future of American foreign policy and the defining issue of the domestic agenda.

Thank you, "Newspaper of Record," for this twice-weekly dosage of ignorant sass.

Edit: Someone suggested that Dowd was being facetious. This is unlikely, because she also writes, "[Clinton] was up to date on the inevitable Law of the Sea Treaty," poking fun at the apparent obscurity of the law.