Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
MCCAIN "BORROWS" HEAVILY IN HIS FOREIGN POLICY ADDRESS.
Amanda Terkel over at Think Progress catches John McCain plagiarizing large portions of his foreign policy speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council yesterday. Sizable chunks of it were lifted directly from a speech made by retired Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer in 1996, and apparently it's not the first time he's lifted from Ziemer. It also appears that some of the parts that weren't stolen from someone else were merely recycled from a speech McCain himself gave in 2001, back before the Iraq War even started. I'm not sure what I should be most concerned about though -- the plagiarism, or the fact that McCain couldn't come up with anything new to say.
UPDATE: Think Progress has updated their post to note that Ziemer’s speech may have been plagiarized from McCain, who apparently used those lines in 1995. Which means that they're all recycling each other's old lines. This doesn't make me feel any better.
--Kate Sheppard
COMMENTS (7)
But it does make the accusation incorrect.
(I say that as no fan of McCain.)
Posted by: Patrick Smith | March 27, 2008 6:00 PM
Yeah, I'm a Dem partisan, but I find myself defending McCain here. If A says something, then B says it, then A says it again, they're not "recycling each others" lines. B is plagiarizing A. A is just repeating him/herself, which is no sin (The merits of what A is saying aside, of course)
A full retraction is the better route.
Posted by: sidereal | March 27, 2008 6:42 PM
Face it, Kate, you blew it. Sidereal is right. Retract this post.
Posted by: captcrisis | March 27, 2008 9:33 PM
It's the next day and still no retraction.
Josh Marshall had no problem retracting -- in fact he removed the entire post. Amanda at the source, "Think Progress", retracted and said she regretted the error. Thus giving the lie to the impression I sometimes get that female bloggers hate to retract or apologize.
C'mon, Kate. You're up to it!
Posted by: captcrisis | March 28, 2008 10:12 AM
The wording of her update may not reflect her intentions with 100% accuracy; although I should hope you are all intelligent enough to derive the point she is making.
The same old rhetoric (perhaps literally in this case) does not instill an air of confidence that McCain would deviate from the foreign relations status quo.
David Brooks' op-ed today in the New York Times suggests otherwise; although this may only mean McCain will be less likely to engage the U.S. in more unjust wars. To that end - only a fool would commit our over stretched forces to further engagements. Until McCain chooses to speak candidly about the situation in Iraq, I see no basis by which to suggest he will bring significant improvement to our nation's international standing.
Posted by: Austin Allen | March 28, 2008 1:53 PM
McCain was talking about war being bad, in words that any liberal would be proud to use. And in words that never get stale. Using the same words actually does credit to McCain. . . whether he follows through on them is another issue.
No, I just don't think Kate thought very hard either about her post or about her "update".
Posted by: captcrisis | March 28, 2008 5:29 PM
rolex replica rolex replica
Posted by: replica rolex | December 19, 2009 11:40 AM