Rand Paul and Wikipedia: Plagiarism or lazy staff?
Being a southern gentleman, Rand Paul places great store in personal honor. At times, he even wishes dueling were still legal in Kentucky, the state he represents in the United States Senate.
It鈥檚 unclear whether he was thinking of pistols, swords, or maybe a walking cane (with gold head) of the type Rep. Preston Brooks used to beat Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 in a dispute over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
鈥淚 think I鈥檓 being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters, and I鈥檓 just not going to put up with people casting aspersions on my character,鈥� he fumed on ABC's "This Week鈥� Sunday.
鈥淚 take it as an insult,鈥� Paul continued. 鈥淎nd I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting, and if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know it鈥檇 be a duel challenge.鈥�
So what was all the ruckus about?
Turns out phrases and whole paragraphs in recent Paul speeches appear to have been lifted from that major source of undergraduate study: Wikipedia. The Associated Press too, and story lines from a couple of popular movies.
The revelations mainly came from , , and .
On Saturday, BuzzFeed also reported that 鈥淎n entire section of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul鈥檚 2013 book听鈥楪overnment Bullies鈥櫶齱as copied wholesale from a听2003 case study by the Heritage Foundation鈥�. The copied section, 1,318 words, is by far the most significant instance reported so far of Paul borrowing language from other published material.鈥�
Paul is particularly miffed at Maddow 鈥� likely the one he was thinking of with his 鈥渄ueling鈥� comment. She鈥檚 one of the strongest media voices on the left.
鈥淵ou know, the person who is leading this attack, she鈥檚 been spreading hate on me for about three years now, and I don鈥檛 intend for it to go away, but I also don鈥檛 see her as an objective news source,鈥� he told anchor Jorge Ramos of Fusion, a new cable channel from ABC News and Univision.
Not so, says Maddow.
鈥淭his is about you lifting other people鈥檚 words verbatim and pretending that they鈥檙e your own,鈥� she said on her show. 鈥淭his is about you lifting entire sections of a website, inserting them into your own speeches, and then passing them off as your own original thoughts. This is something that high school students know not to do鈥�.鈥�
The Paul camp is trying to dismiss the flap as inconsequential.
听
听鈥淥nly in Washington is something this trivial a source for liberal media angst,鈥� Paul adviser Doug Stafford, the senator鈥檚 former chief of staff, told Politico.
But Stafford also said, 鈥淲hile Sen. Paul doesn鈥檛 believe that this is the normal standard for speeches, going forward he will be more cautious in presenting and attributing sources.鈥�
End of story? Probably.
But in a way, it鈥檚 probably a good thing for Paul that any speech-making attribution sloppiness came out now. He鈥檚 frequently on short lists for Republican presidential candidates.
He doesn鈥檛 need any more headlines like this recent one on the Atlantic magazine web site 鈥� 鈥淐an Rand Paul Learn to Tell the Truth?鈥� 鈥� referencing 鈥渉is sticky habit for bending the facts.鈥�
Better that it should come out now than in 2016.
(I鈥檇 explain the Kansas-Nebraska Act, by the way, but I鈥檇 have to crib from Wikipedia. And as everybody knows, professional journalists never do that.)
