ALL MODO, ALL THE TIMES: Maureen Dowd, ace girl reporter for the New York Times, is on the cover of New York magazine this week. She is everywhere these days; I can’t seem to pick up a magazine anymore without pictures of Ms. Dowd staring back at me. Now, I am told that she has a book coming out shortly and that this may well be the usual Madison Avenue p.r. blitz designed to boost book sales and earn the publisher back the advance; hype in pursuit of lucre, filthy or otherwise, is always a good thing, I think. It may also be a charm offensive sponsored by the New York Times, whose publisher, Mr. Sulzburger, manages to embody in his own person just about every argument ever made against the concept of hereditary succession, and who recently looked the other way and whistled "Melancholy Baby" as Ms. Dowd publicly sliced up another Times reporter, Judith Miller, on the Op-Ed page of Mr. Sulzberger's august journal. Perhaps having done his dirty work for him, Mr. Sulzburger wants his readers to think nice things about Ms. Dowd, seeing as how saying that you like someone (Ms. Miller)while publicly gutting them for the edification of the chattering classes and those who aspire to chatterdom seems a bit hypocritical to those of us who don't chatter for our daily bread. In any case, I do know that whoever told her that having her picture taken against a snow white backdrop was a good idea was definitely pulling Ms. Dowd’s leg, given that this cover makes her look more than a little like the Wicked Witch of the Northeast, smiling beneficently down as Toto, Hollywood’s favorite unbearably cute pooch, wolfs down a big bowl of Alpo seasoned with that yummy A-1 steak sauce and a generous sprinkling of rat poison. No, Toto, you’re not in Kansas anymore, and your chances of getting back there are none too good.