Rand Paul and/or his minions have a serious plagiarism problem

Not strange at all ... there's probably a pretty big lag between when this stuff gets "written" and when it appears in print/online. If you have some individual (or subset of individuals) who had been doing it awhile back, wouldn't be at all unusual for all of these incidents to appear.

I can't believe that Paul didn't do some Googling last week and immediately get out in front of this. Wouldn't have been hard to do.

 

Really?

Your posts strongly suggested that the media as a whole, including crime reporters (which is what I was most defensive about, having been one), did not challenge "facts" because they were bought and paid for by their liberal puppetmasters and would be blacklisted if they dared try to correct the narrative that furthers the liberal agenda.

My post flat-out says that Beltway journalists wouldn't break a plagiarism story because they're often lazy, arrogant pricks whose only agenda is to be seen as important and powerful.

Plus, if you remember, I made it a point to mention that I had a beef with political reporting of all stripes, but didn't elaborate because we were talking about a story that wasn't political, despite the best efforts of some to make it so.

 

I'm not sure you understood what I'm getting at.

I'm surprised that Paul's people keep making the same basic mistake over and over and over again. Unless it's just one person doing it, which seems doubtful, it's an odd systemic problem to have.

 

I think you'd be surprised at: 1) just how small his staff really is; and 2) just how apportioned particular tasks are. You get a dingbat or two in there doing stuff like this, you're going to see a lot of it. Not that I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying it's not necessarily an "over and over" sort of thing.

 

So, in other words, it's completely plausible that there is a single moron in Rand Paul's camp who is a serial plagiarizer.

 

"Cut and Run"

 

It's plausible, to me at least, that there was a relatively small number of people (perhaps even only one or two) doing this at some time in the past. Ever hear of a Pareto phenomenon? It's the idea that a large proportion of outcomes can be traced to a relatively small number of underlying causes. It's not out of the realm for me to believe that most/all of the plagiarism can (or could) be traced to a small cohort of doofuses.

 

Maybe he has the same friend as Maureen Dowd.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/maureen-dowd-admits-inadv_n_204418.html

 

This fucking guy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/politics/after-plagiarism-charges-paul-announces-office-restructuring.html

Still blaming "haters." Says he will start using footnotes if it will "get people to leave me the hell alone."

Also threatens to go back to practicing medicine. So, you know, tread lightly.

 

If you don't want to be ripped on charges of plagiarism, quit plagiarising. That's how to "get people to leave you the hell alone."

A really rugged and self-reliant solution would be to hire someone really professionally qualified to do your speechwriting, but that would cost money. Not much (relatively), but money.

And we know of course that Rand is one of them fellas who doesn't want to spend any money on anything.

 

Rand will never go back to practicing medicine, that I will guarantee.

 

The Distinguished Senator from Kentucky (DSFK) hasn't handled himself very well here. Best approach would have been to say at the outset something along the lines of "Mistakes were made and I'll see to it that they won't be made again ..." and let it go at that. Then as the revelations continued to trickle forward, the DSFK could have just kept to that line. Getting into the "haters" bit? Weak sauce, man, weak sauce.