Plagiarism, the act of passing off others’ words/ideas as one’s own, is on this year’s presidential ballot.
In 1988, then-Senator Joe Biden was caught plagiarizing other politicians, including the UK’s Neil Kinnock. The ensuing scandal was so devastating that Biden was forced to withdraw from his first attempt at the presidency.
Back then, national media took plagiarism seriously. But clearly, times have changed. After all, Joe Biden is president(ish) today.
Now, there is confirmation that Vice President Kamala Harris plagiarized substantial portions of a book she published in order to burnish her shaky “criminal justice” credentials before running to become California’s attorney general.
Christopher Rufo, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, reported: “Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book, Smart on Crime, according to a new investigation. The current vice president even lifted material from Wikipedia. We have the receipts.” And, “The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian ‘plagiarism hunter’ who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world. We independently confirmed multiple violations.”
Harris lifted language verbatim from an uncited AP/NBC News report, multiple paragraphs from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release, from an Urban Institute report, and from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report that was linked from a Wikipedia entry.
In fact, Harris may have copied and pasted entire sections of her book from Wikipedia.
For the record, anyone who steals from sources as easily manipulated and unreliable as Wikipedia is as foolish as they are dishonest.
Reputable educators and media (yeah, I know…) discourage quoting or even paraphrasing Wikipedia, but, rather, recommend checking an entry’s “Reference” section for links to more authoritative sources. Harris appears to have plagiarized from both.
It happens, so a writer may be forgiven for inadvertently missing, forgetting or dropping a citation or two, but, to truly-principled journalists and academics, plagiarizing significant portions of a work intended to appear “scholarly” should be ethically disqualifying.
Nevertheless, the New York Times attempted to excuse Harris, headlining: “Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages From Harris Book.”
Apparently, a conservative “seizing on” was the real crime.
The Times’ sub-lede read: “A report by Christopher Rufo says the Democratic presidential nominee copied five short passages for her 2009 book on crime. A plagiarism expert said the lapses were not serious.”
Rufo replied on “X”: “The New York Times provided its ‘plagiarism expert’ with only five plagiarized passages – in other words, it deliberately withheld more than a dozen of the accusations in an attempt to manipulate the expert and run interference for Kamala Harris. This is pure corruption.”
And Jonathan Bailey, the plagiarism consultant and publisher of “Plagiarism Today” who was consulted by the Times, also commented on “X.” “For those coming here from the NY Times Article. I want to be clear that I have NOT performed a full analysis of the book. My quotes were based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages.”
Rufo is correct, the Times is corrupt.
Plagiarism by any candidate for high office should be a major news story.
But, for the most part, regime media are trying to get Kamala Harris elected, so, they have largely chosen to ignore the substantiated evidence of her plagiarism.
To be fair, there have been a few, usually dismissive references to it. CNN, for example, allowed that Harris “appear[s] to have lifted some language…” while tacitly laying responsibility off on a ghostwriter. But, the Washington Post published Harris’ denial; the AP and ABC storyline emphasized a “partisan attack”; and the story went mostly MIA on the networks.
In addition to coverage accuracy, journalistic ethics can also be graded on the stories not covered.
If any Republican candidate of either gender or any skin color had committed a similarly egregious ethical breach, media and academics nationwide would demand their immediate withdrawal. The scandal would appear in banner headlines and lead newscasts until and including Election Day.
But, sadly, the win-at-all-cost left lacks an ethical compass.
The state of ethics in ideological media and higher education today is such that most “journalists” and “academics” will make themselves accessories to fraud by continuing to promote and vote for a confirmed plagiarist.
That’s just one reason why trust in media has plummeted to a record low.
Contact columnist Jerry Shenk at [email protected]
