Althouse: NYT exposes the U.S. Senator from Montana who seems to have committed plagiarism on his dissertation.

July 23, 2014

NYT exposes the U.S. Senator from Montana who seems to have committed plagiarism on his dissertation.

And he's even a Democrat.

34 comments:

Sorun said...: At least his thesis is getting some attention. That's more than I can say.; 7/23/14, 7:09 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Is he running for tenure, or the Senate?

It says something about his character. I don't care much about academic norms in politics. I think we give academics far more credit for honesty and integrity than they deserve.

It certainly should effect his academic standing. I'm not sure that it should matter politically any more than adultery or other personal or professional dishonesty.; 7/23/14, 7:09 PM
Anonymous said...: What difference, at this point, does it make?

A plagiarist is a heart beat away to become the Plagiarist-in-Chief. May even be an improvement to what we have now.; 7/23/14, 7:32 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Of course he is a Democrat. They are the party where winning is everything, and, I suspect part of that is that they know that with winning comes control of law enforcement (e.g. AG Eric Holder).

In any case, it was pretty sleezy from the first. Max Baucus was dead meat in Montana, after being so instrumental in getting ObamaCare passed. So, they slid in a "moderate" Dem with good military credentials this year as a replacement so that he could run as an incumbent this November.

Now we find that he first lied about where he got his undergraduate degree, and, now it turns out that he plagiarized to get his War College degree. Will it matter? My guess not. Realistically, the War College should probably yank the degree. But, we have seen that the military is fast becoming politicized, thanks to Obama Administration pressure, with the new AF commander, the failure to call a court-martial for the soldier who got traded for the Gitmo terrorists, etc. Does anyone here believe that the Administration won't put a lot of pressure on the Army here to ignore the plagiarism, if that means retaining a Dem Senate Seat?; 7/23/14, 7:32 PM
John said...: With regard to honesty in research papers, including correct citation where appropriate, I thought the election of VP Biden affirmed in the view of the American electorate that plagiarism was an acceptable technique for a politician.; 7/23/14, 7:34 PM
rhhardin said...: Beware the ideas of march.; 7/23/14, 7:40 PM
Lawcruiter said...: I'm skeptical - why would the NY Times, of all Democratic mouthpieces, so publicly and extensively expose and embarrass a sitting Democratic Senator? Waiting for the next shoe to drop...; 7/23/14, 7:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Plagiarism? Vice Presidential timber.; 7/23/14, 7:48 PM
George M. Spencer said...: I look forward to the day when we learn who wrote Obama's autobiography.

The book "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician," wrote Time columnist Joe Klein.[33] ...sez Wikipedia.

Obama otherwise has never shown any sign of wit, literary imagination, or oratory originality.

Great article here analyzing the similarities between terrorist Bill Ayers' writing style and that of his friend and neighbor Obama.; 7/23/14, 7:55 PM
LL said...: The article indicates that Vice President Biden plagiarized a speech during his 1988 bid for the presidency; however, Biden was found guilty of plagiarism in law school and received an F in the class. He is a serial plagiarist.; 7/23/14, 9:00 PM
LL said...: Why would they say his earlier lies were not significant. He lied about his undergraduate degree. That is ballsy.; 7/23/14, 9:02 PM
William said...: Doris Kearns Goodwin helped him research the topic.....If worse comes to worse, he can always get a job as a speechwriter for Joe Biden.; 7/23/14, 9:02 PM
AustinRoth said...: Yes, but he served in the military, so that makes him "Republicanish" enough to go after.; 7/23/14, 9:26 PM
John Cunningham said...: Since the guy is a DemonRAT party loyalist, nothing will happen to him. if he were a repub, it would be on the front page of every paper in Montana, and every local news show, until election day.; 7/23/14, 9:34 PM
madAsHell said...: It's a good thing that Obama never wrote....anything!!; 7/23/14, 9:40 PM
Anonymous said...: It's his CIB that makes him problematic for The Times.; 7/23/14, 9:48 PM
Scott said...: The NYT probably saw this one as a 'gimme', since he is WAY behind in the polls, and really has no serious chance of being elected to the seat in November. Hence they could take the high road at no real cost since this was a dead man walking in the first place.

As for Biden and his plagiarism, the best response to it came from Neil Kinnock, the man who Biden stole from in the first place. He was addressing some small gathering in 1988, and when he came to a particularly important point he wanted to make he said "As Joe Biden once wronte..."

It broke up the room; 7/23/14, 9:59 PM
Paul Ciotti said...: Post Traumatic Plagiarism Disorder. Could happen to anyone.; 7/23/14, 11:46 PM
traditionalguy said...: The NYT has a standing permit for elite writers to attack any military career officer at any time. The Dem party affiliation is not enough to protect men used to fight against our enemies, who by being our enemies have become automatic friends of the NYT.; 7/23/14, 11:47 PM
a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...: I think thee is a danger of being to circumstantial in a political speech. Joe Biden was on the stump and took what he'd heard as a line of poetry and repeated it. Nobody wants to hear him say, 'As General, then President, Dwight Eisenhower used to say, and the nuns at school were wont to point it out (so it's, remember, a good applause line), "God bless the United States of America," ' Presenting a thesis of original ideas or even a review is different.; 7/24/14, 12:05 AM
Tarrou said...: And they put the word "Democrat" in the title? Something fishy going on here.; 7/24/14, 5:17 AM
ddh said...: Senator Walsh (Temp-MT) blames his plagiarism on PTSD. If you don't like the way he voted in the Senate, it was the PTSD, too.; 7/24/14, 5:37 AM
Curious George said...: They probably assumed he was a Republican since it was one of those God and Duns places.

And Obama lifted parts of Deval Patrick's "Just Words" speech.; 7/24/14, 7:00 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: It is, at best, sloppy. But is it any worse than voting on bills that no one has read or understood? Senators do that a lot, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act being the biggest recent example.; 7/24/14, 7:36 AM
Eric said...: Did he ever say anything bad about Hillary?; 7/24/14, 7:41 AM
lgv said...: He says he didn't do it on purpose. The computer did the cut and paste command all by itself. Or maybe its just a coincidence that the words he penned were exactly the same as someone else.

Blaming it on PTSD is an insult to those who have truly suffered.

He did copy some good writers.

Also, I assumed the blog post title dissertation was meant to mean PhD dissertation, rather than a "thesis" for his masters degree. Is there such a distinction?; 7/24/14, 8:28 AM
Biff said...: It really is interesting that the NYT chose to run this piece so prominently. There is a purpose behind every one of their decisions to publish (or not to publish) an article. What is going on here?

Who commissioned the investigation into his War College paper, and why? (By the way, with the ease of analyzing document texts electronically, I am sure that this kind of plagiarism hunt soon will be part of every reasonably well funded political "opposition research" campaign, if it isn't already.); 7/24/14, 8:49 AM
C R Krieger said...: If this follows the norm his name will be chiseled off the brass plaque at the entrance to Bliss Hall at Carlisle (Army War College). This was for his Masters Degree. Back around 1990 the Senior Service Colleges got accredited (like by Middle States) to offer Masters Degrees upon graduation. I thought it was a bad idea at the time.

Regards — Cliff; 7/24/14, 9:09 AM
MadisonMan said...: Why is there a United States Army War College?; 7/24/14, 9:39 AM
TosaGuy said...: He cheated while at the War College, which is a highly competitive school for Army officers to get into. You have to finish it in order to become a general, if you are not selected, one's career ends at colonel.

Adjutants general of a state's National Guard are appointed by the governor. He can pick anyone he wants, but you need War College before Uncle Same lets you pin on general.

He should be striped of his retired rank of Major General and returned to that of Colonel.

As a mid-grade military officer, I am sick and tired of senior leaders who get ahead while cheating and betraying the ethics they are supposed to live every day.; 7/24/14, 9:51 AM
geokstr said...: "Mr. Walsh’s paper will be run through an online plagiarism detection program..."

Prof Althouse:
1) If these plagiarism detection programs are available online, then why aren't all student theses, dissertations, and other major papers run through them by professors routinely? If they're submitted digitally, it should be easy to do.
2) Do these programs automatically bypass anything footnoted, in quotation marks, or otherwise cited, thereby eliminating the false positives?

I would appreciate any knowledge you have on the subject.

It would seem that all submissions for peer reviewed publications could easily do the same as part of the review process. Same for "journalistic" articles, books, "reporting", and academic/political publications.

I have a feeling most would show plagiarism of some sort, and the first step towards fixing a problem is realizing/admitting you have one in the first place.; 7/24/14, 10:07 AM
C R Krieger said...: Re Madison Man's Question

Why is there a United States Army War College?

Well, when, after WWII, General Eisenhower gave the Army War College building (Roosevelt Hall) to the new National War College, and the Navy War College didn't go away, the Army set its own War College back up, first at Fort Leavenworth and then at Carlisle Barracks. [Note: If you fly out of National (Reagan) Airport and you look out across the Potomac you can see Roosevelt Hall on the other side.]

If Madison Man is asking why don't we just abandon the whole concept, there is some belief out there that we did as well as we did in WWII because we invested well in Professional Military Education after WWI (the war to end all wars). I would note that with the defeat of Democrat Rep Ike Skelton we have not had a PME advocate on Capitol Hill (I and a few others had hoped that Dem Rep Niki Tsongas would pick up the mantle, but she didn't.).

If Madison Man is asking why we just don't send these Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels off to civilian institutions, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and UW-M, I think the reason is that the student do a lot of learning from each other and in developing officers for future joint operations it is good to give them a chance to rub elbows with members of the other Services and Department of the Army Civilians and the odd State Department person. Besides, the War Colleges give "Dead Carl" a central place, which he earned with his book On War.

Regards — Cliff

Carlisle '83 (No Masters Degrees that year); 7/24/14, 10:57 AM
Biff said...: geokstr said... "If these plagiarism detection programs are available online, then why aren't all student theses, dissertations, and other major papers run through them by professors routinely? If they're submitted digitally, it should be easy to do."

Sometimes they are, but no one wants to be in a position where they have to discipline or give failing grades to 80%+ of a class. Too much work having to explain that to administration.; 7/24/14, 3:21 PM
mikee said...: I note the name Biden, another famous plagiarist, does not appear in the text of the post nor the comment section.

Veep material in 30 years or so?; 7/25/14, 12:02 AM