Michael Kinsley writes this morning that Maureen Dowd is “the most influential columnist of our time.”

Yes, over at the Pentagon, Rummy and Wolfie each week eagerly await her sage guidance on military strategy. And when John Bolton arrives in NY, he’ll be lunching with her regularly, in hopes of gaining insights into the subtleties of Chinese and Russian thinking – as well as to get the sort of nuanced picture of the Middle East that Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami merely attempt.

And Karen Hughes is dying for the insights Mo can provide into how to reach people in foreign cultures, e.g. Indonesia, Central Europe, Beverly Hills and the Upper West Side.

And of course, there are world leaders who routinely have translations of Dowd’s columns waiting on their desks in the morning. Which world leaders? Ask John Kerry. He talks to them all the time.

The Kinsley column is here.

While I have your attention, my Scripps column on the appointment of Karen Hughes and Dina Powell to the top communications jobs in State – “Fighting the War of Ideas – Not a job for sissies” is here.