See, here’s the thing. Even though (wow – fun red helicopter landing at the White House as I write) Senator Paul assures us plagiarism is no biggie and the whole thing’s been cooked up by haters, newspapers really don’t appreciate being used as data dumps by people too busy and important to bother actually writing anything for them.
If you ask UD, the whole rich famous important person as plagiarist thing (as opposed to desperate pathetic high school superintendents and the like) is really about the culture of entitlement – a culture a lot of people (see another reference to helicopters, just below this post) really really don’t like. Monsieur Tea Party looks – post-plagiarism – like exactly what he is, which is just about as far from a populist as you can get. He looks like a high-handed give-a-shit SOB who breaks rules and blows things off because he can. Because he’s got a squad of staffers doing everything for him. Rand Paul’s initial response to the plagiarism revelation was echt entitled person. UD believes she can put it into two words. It is: Fuck You.
This response has made things worse for Rand Paul, so he’s gone to Entitled Option Two: He’s blamed it all on said squad and fired everybody in sight. Let’s see how that works out for him. Meanwhile, the Washington Times rightly rids itself of a parasite.
November 6th, 2013 at 10:48AM
Dear Margaret,
C’mon, we need Rand Paul to create a MOOC so that politicians can learn how to plagiarize and get away with it. If they can place a plagiarized piece in a major newspaper and it isn’t discovered for 12 months, they’ve completed the MOOC.
And I know what to call this new model of coursework: incompetency-based education.
November 7th, 2013 at 12:24PM
nice, this actually raises the stature of the Washington Times in my eyes. They have the integrity to sack a plagiarist. Good for them.