Side note: Good News, I think this Allison person is less famous that you think. I'd never heard of her at least.
Doctorow is a "clear thinker" if you're fine with his oversimplifying matters and making a lot of assumptions about things that he shouldn't be making. He's a bit too bloodthirsty about killing copyright: he seems all-too-willing to abandon all traditions just because things are changing. I don't think that "get rid of everything" is at all a measured response to the issues at hand. Similarly, whenever he talks about art I want to jab a fork between my eyes. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He knows less about what he's talking about than I do on the same issues, and I'm not particularly well-versed in the subject.
His fiction is terrible. That he was nominated for awards with that one story of his just saddens me. It's cliched, poorly-written, and really not all that interesting.
but back to your original claim, you may not like his writing but you have to acknowledge that other people do. not only does he write, but he does so about important and relevant topics, and from a point of view too often ignored by a large part of society. in the very least, to write him off as a paris hilton is dishonest if not asinine.
That's what bugs me. Doctorow is certainly a Paris Hilton: he does things for attention and he uses that attention to do things he couldn't do otherwise. That doesn't make him stupid (nor do I think Paris Hilton is particularly stupid, though she certainly plays the part): it just makes him somebody who doesn't deserve the box he gets.