Behind the firewall

[lsanderson]

Steroids and the Asterisk By BOB GREENE
FARGO, N.D.

EARLY on a chilly afternoon in these weeks before the Christmas rush, there are few enough customers in the West Acres Shopping Center, an enclosed mall constructed in the 1970's, that the sounds of heels clicking against the floors of the bright and clean corridors echo from storefront to storefront.

At a shop called Almost Famous, a hand-drawn sign beckons: "Yes! We Do Body Piercing - Seven Days a Week!" A caricature artist manning a kiosk cranes his head, hoping for a willing subject. Up ahead is the interior entrance to JCPenney.

Maureen Dowd goes after Judy

October 22, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Woman of Mass Destruction
By MAUREEN DOWD

I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.

The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.

Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.

At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."