Tag: Plagiarism

The Tell-Tale Five.


“The National Archives gave the document prominent display, putting it on tour along with other important Lincoln documents. But for several years, archivist Thomas Plante had been troubled by the document. The ‘5’ appeared to be darker than the rest of the document and was perhaps covering another number.“

A decade after attempting to secure fifteen minutes of fame, amateur historian Thomas Lowry is caught tampering with original Lincoln documents: He made it seem Lincoln’s last official act was pardoning a Union deserter named Patrick Murphy, actually pardoned in 1864. “Lowry’s purported discovery was hailed by historians when he came forward in 1998. At the time, a Civil War expert with the Archives said Lowry had made ‘a unique and substantial contribution to Lincoln research and to the study of the Civil War.’”

Heroes to Zeroes.


I thought this was interesting. Long-time readers may remember that back in the day, I wrote a few posts about the TV show Heroes pretty blatantly ripping off Watchmen and the X-Men “Days of Future Past” storylines, which was all the more annoying because showrunner Tim Kring claimed to never read comics. So, anyway, a representative from Carnival Comics found those old posts and sent along this info about the lawsuit they’ve recently filed against NBC and Heroes for plagiarism (from Season 4, which begs the question: If you pretty clearly plagiarize from someone, and yet nobody in America actually watches your final product, does it still count as plagiarism?) I must say, particularly in light of the earlier grifts, the PDF in question is rather damning.

Undaunted Audacity.

“Nonfiction writers who succumb to the temptations of phantom scholarship are a burgeoning breed these days, although most stop short of fabricating interviews with Presidents. But Stephen Ambrose, who, at the time of his death, in 2002, was America’s most famous and popular historian, appears to have done just that.“

In less-sanguine history news, and by way of Past Punditry, a new blog by an old Columbia colleague of mine, it appears that the late Stephen Ambrose — already unmasked as a serial plagiarist — also conjured several purported interviews with President Eisenhower out of thin air. “Access to Eisenhower in his retirement years was tightly controlled…These records show that Eisenhower saw Ambrose only three times, for a total of less than five hours. The two men were never alone together.” Hmm…I could’ve saved a lot of time in gradual school if I could just make it up. (Sadly, there’s been a rash of fake presidential quotes going around lately.)

Deep in the Heart of Texas.

In case you missed it, debate No. 19, held in Austin, TX, came and went this evening. (Transcript.) My quick take: Not all that much news made here, and, as a tie goes to the defender, that’s a win for Barack Obama.

The big question coming in tonight was whether, after losing eleven contests in a row, Sen. Clinton would go into relentless-attack-mode (as desired by Mark Penn) or instead try to reassert her positives and perhaps prepare for a dignified exit to the race (as advised by Mandy Grunwald.) Well, the answer turned out to be yes. The first forty-five minutes or so were civil, agreeable, and thoroughly stultifying, basically a duller continuation of the LA debate of three weeks ago. Then, in the middle going, Sen. Clinton began trying to score some points, for example, by (once again) calling Obama a plagiarist and saying the Senator represented “change you can xerox.” (That canned line backfired rather badly, and drew the only boos of the night. I hope this is because most people realize the plagiarism charge is absolutely moronic.)

For his part, Sen. Obama — looking ever more presidential, as is the frontrunner’s wont — took the high road, correctly calling such maneuvers part of the “silly season” of politics and keeping the conversation mostly about substantive differences, such, as, once again, the interminable mandate question. (He had a particularly good response to the “cult” charge: “The implication has been that the people who have been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional…The thinking is that somehow they’re being duped…and that eventually they’re going to see the reality of things. I think they perceive the reality of what’s going on in Washington very clearly.” Touche.)

The moment that’s getting a lot of the buzz right now is Sen. Clinton’s closing statement, which (Xerox alert!) borrowed heavily from both John Edwards and Bill Clinton in 1992. (I actually don’t care at all about that, but if you’re going to throw around spurious claims of plagiarism, you’d best be careful about that glass house.) More troublingly, in her close Sen. Clinton explicitly invoked her surprisingly game-changing Reverse Muskie back in New Hampshire. (She began this particular lip-quavering moment by asking herself the same goofy question she got in the diner: “How do you do it?”)

Now, I don’t want to claim Sen. Clinton is a fraud, even if she’s seemed considerably less than “absolutely honored to be here with Barack Obama” over the past three weeks of scurrilious charges and no concession speeches. If anything, I agree with CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, who was much less enthralled by the moment than that venerable Establishment Davos-boogier, David Gergen. I think she got genuinely choked up for exactly the same reasons as she did back in NH. With the writing on the wall for her candidacy, this was a valedictory moment of sorts. Fine, she’s earned it, and I applaud her for seemingly choosing, at least for a few moments, a graceful exit that will help bring the party back together. That being said, I wouldn’t get such a guilty twinge of Bernie Birnbaum-ish grandstanding about it all if she hadn’t explicitly invoked the diner tear, and/or if Clinton flunky Howard Wolfson hadn’t immediately try to tell us afterward that this was “the moment she retook the reins of this race and showed women and men why she is the best choice.” Um, no, not really.

Clinton: Obama is Bidenesque.

Sigh…Flailing about like a drowning victim, the Clinton campaign tries to accuse Sen. Obama of plagiarism for echoing remarks by friend and Obama supporter Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts regarding the value of words. (Both quoted such examples as “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” “I have a dream,” and “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” as times when words did, in fact, matter.) I’m sorry, but this is somewhat ludicrous, particularly coming from the grift-happy Clinton camp. (In fact, when asked point blank if Sen. Clinton has been known to lift from others, her campaign demurred.) For Gov. Patrick’s part, he said: “Senator Obama and I are long-time friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy and language. The argument in question, on the value of words in the public square, is one about which he and I have spoken frequently before. Given the recent attacks from Senator Clinton, I applaud him responding in just the way he did.“

Ok, for one, much political rhetoric is by its nature an amalgamation of soundbites and talking points from other places. (See also Clinton and “Yes, we can,” or John McCain’s “ready to lead.”) For another, it’s not as if Sen. Obama (or his speechwriters) lifted entire paragraphs from some other source. He — and Patrick — both cited the most well-known examples in our history of words making a difference. It’s an obvious and devastating riposte to Clinton’s idiotic assertion that rhetoric is worthless. Could he have snuck Deval Patrick’s name in there? Well, I suppose so (as does Obama), but, really, this is pretty standard stuff in the political world. (And, before we consign ourselves to a political rhetoric characterized by interminable footnotes, let’s not forget: 95% of the time every word out of any candidate’s mouth — including Clinton’s — has been written by someone else.)

In any case, with this sad plagiarism riff, the Clinton campaign has shown once again that it will yield to nothing or noone in its race to the bottom. Please, go away, already. You’ve become an embarrassment to the Democratic party. Update: Former Carter speechwriter (and a friend and mentor of sorts) James Fallows calls shenanigans on the Clinton campaign.

Who Watches the Watchmen? Tim Kring, apparently.

As I noted a few weeks ago, NBC’s Heroes has been a guilty pleasure of mine this past season: It serves up poorly-scripted, wafer-thin, and yet undeniably scrumptious slices of z-grade fanboy cheese every week, and it’s close to the only network show I watch these days. (And the “Company Man” episode of a few weeks ago was good television by any reckoning.) That being said, the show’s outright plagiarism is getting more and more marked, to the point where I’m fast losing interest. Series creator Tim Kring says he doesn’t read any comics, which I find somewhat hard to believe. And there’s always going to be some overlap in the superhero genre, just because there’s only so many ways you can tell the same sort of story. But Monday’s episode not only showed the writers continuing to lift liberally from the famous “Days of Future Past” arc from the Claremont-Byrne years of X-Men, but brazenly ripping off one of the key plot points of the mother of all contemporary graphic novels, Alan Moore’s Watchmen. And I don’t mean homage or tip-of-the-hat — I mean straight-up, unabashed, actionable stealing, right down to Linderman’s Ozymandian monologue. For shame. Do Kring & co. really think their fanboy/fangirl viewership isn’t going to notice?

Biden’s Macaca Moment.

“He’s ‘the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.‘” As you no doubt heard, Joe Biden torpedoed his own official candidacy announcement this week by using dubious language to describe his rival, Barack Obama. (Well, at least the words were his own.) The sticking point in the news seems to be Biden’s talk of Obama as “clean” — Al Sharpton had a nice riposte: “I take a bath every day.” But really, “articulate” is pretty bad too: It’s one of those classic buzzwords of unwitting racist condescension. (He’s so well-spoken!) Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The Shiftless Plagiarist.

“These examples help bring a crucial issue of plagiarism into focus. Behind the talk of originality lurks another preoccupation, less plainly voiced: a concern about the just distribution of labor.” After reading Richard Posner’s Little Book of Plagiarism, Slate‘s Meghan O’Rourke ruminates on the ethics of stealing someone’s words. (Also seen at — shamelessly plagiarized from? — The Late Adopter.)