Showing posts with label Tom Ault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Ault. Show all posts

September 11, 2013

The scholar relied on by Kerry and McCain to make the case for attacking Syria has been fired for lying about having a Ph.D.

Politico reports, noting an unbelievably small discrepancy:
[Elizabeth] O’Bagy told POLITICO’s Kate Brannen in an interview Monday that she had submitted and defended her dissertation and was waiting for Georgetown University to confer her degree.
Drudge blares: "CURVEBALL: WOMAN BEHIND CASE FOR SYRIA STRIKE FIRED FOR LYING."

IN THE COMMENTS: Tom Ault said:
After I defended my dissertation, I was told by my adviser that I could start calling myself a PhD as soon as my committee signed off on it, even though the degree wouldn't be formally conferred on me until sometime later. I suspect that the lack of a formal PhD in this case is simply cover for firing a scapegoat. 
I agree.

UPDATE: "O’Bagy confirmed to The Daily Beast that she was only enrolled in a master’s program at Georgetown and had applied to join the joint MA/Ph.D. program but was never accepted."
“I would like to deeply apologize to every person with whom I have worked, who has read and depended upon my research, and to the general public,” O’Bagy said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “While I have made many mistakes and showed extremely poor judgment, I most particularly regret my public misrepresentation of my educational status and not immediately disclosing that I had not been awarded a doctorate in May, 2013.”