Monday, November 4, 2013

Rand Paul Plagiarized From Heritage, Cato?

Here is what BuzzFeed in reporting about libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY):
An entire section of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s 2013 book Government Bullies was copied wholesale from a 2003 case study by the Heritage Foundation, BuzzFeed has learned. The copied section, 1,318 words, is by far the most significant instance reported so far of Paul borrowing language from other published material.
The new cut-and-paste job follows reports by BuzzFeed, Politico, and MSNBC that Paul had plagiarized speeches either from Wikipedia or news reports. The book was published in August 2013 by Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group.
In this case, Paul included a link to the Heritage case study in the book’s footnotes, though he made no effort to indicate that not just the source, but the words themselves, had been taken from Heritage.
...In another instance in the book, several sentences appeared similar to a report by a senior fellow at the Cato Institute Mark Moller in the National Wetlands Newsletter. Moller said he had not given anyone permission to reprint any parts of his article.
In the past couple of years there have been several reports of think tankers plagiarizing or lying about their resume, but this is the first instance of a high-level official reportedly plagiarizing from a think tank.

Neither the libertarian Cato Institute nor the conservative Heritage Foundation seem too hot and bothered by the allegations.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?