plagiarism in columns

Last month, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd stole a paragraph for her column from the blog of Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall. Besides the fact that I don’t believe her explanation that she hadn’t read Marshall’s blog and had just heard the thought from a friend (the paragraph was the same word-for-word except for changing “we were” to “the Bush crowd was”), this makes me wonder exactly how much columnists can get away with when it comes to sources.

During my time at the Lariat, columns were my favorite things to write, mainly because I didn’t have to run around looking for three solid sources. I could casually reference a friend and not have to worry about giving them credit. Is that okay?

Do people who write light opinion pieces have the same set of ethical standards to follow as news writers? Or is there more room for error in columns?