Skip to main content

Plagiarism in Politics

By


Acting U.S. Senator John Walsh is the latest victim of "oppo-research," a new level in research into political candidates and opponents that digs into virtually every aspect of a person's life, including his academic records.  As it turns out, Walsh plagiarized large sections of his 2007 Master's thesis and now finds himself in trouble, not just politically but with the university.

Last year, it didn't take Rachel Maddow very long to root out the source of Paul Rand's comments on eugenics, catching him quoting from a wiki page on the movie, Gattaca, adding the word "liberal."  This turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg, as Rand often doesn't attribute his sources.  He claims he was just being "sloppy."

There was also a big brouhaha over where Obama's 2008 campaign slogan, "Yes we can" came from.  Many conservative sources attributed it to Bob the Builder, but it has been used so many times that one would consider it in the public domain.  Cesar Chavez used the Spanish form, "Si se puede" as the motto for the United Farm Workers back in the 70s, and one could probably find even earlier examples.

Plagiarism charges are nothing new.  Even Cicero was accused of cribbing Demosthenes, among others, for his rhetorical style and content.  That could be said of most politicians, who usually rely on historical models, whether they choose to reference them or not.

However, Walsh failed to properly attribute quotes in an academic paper, which is a serious no-no.  It got Joe Biden into a whole lot of trouble back in 1988, when it was revealed during his Presidential campaign that he had failed a 1965 introductory law course due to plagiarism.  The supersleuth now as then was the New York Times.  But, even the NYTimes editorial staff has been accused of plagiarism, notably Paul Krugman.  It seems no one is immune from such accusations.

In the end, one wonders if it really matters except maybe in the court of law, where family members of Randy California tried to block the re-issue of Led Zeppelin IV because they claimed Jimmy Page stole his famous riff in Stairway to Heaven from Randy's intro to Taurus.  The case was thrown out.

That should be the case with many of these political plagiarism charges, but it seems that politicians will use anything to get a leg up on their rivals, especially in hotly contested Senate races where the Republicans hope to regain the majority in the U.S. Senate.  Fortunately for Walsh these charges came early enough where he has a chance to rebound from them, provided he doesn't stick his foot any deeper into his mouth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more