There goes that presidential bid Rand Paul Plagiarism Scandal Grows On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul got busted for lifting several paragraphs verbatim from Wikipedia for a speech he recently gave: Here, from the Courier-Journal, is part of his theft: Paul said: “In the movie ‘Gattaca,’ in the ‘not to distant future,’ eugenics is common and DNA plays a primary role in determining your social class.” The Wikipedia entry said, “In ‘the not-too-distant future,’ liberal eugenics is common and DNA plays the primary role in determining social class.” Paul said, “Due to frequent screenings, Vincent faces genetic discrimination and prejudice. The only way to achieve his dream of being an astronaut, is he has to become what’s called a ‘borrowed ladder.’ ” Wikipedia’s passage is this: “Due to frequent screening, Vincent faces genetic discrimination and prejudice. The only way he can achieve his dream of becoming an astronaut is to become a ‘borrowed ladder.’ ” http://www.courier-journal.com Tuesday, Andrew Kaczynski at BuzzFeed.com found yet ANOTHER example of Paul's lifting huge chunks of text directly from Wikipedia for a speech: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/rand-paul-has-given-speeches-plagarized-from-wikipedia-befor Rachel Maddow said Tuesday evening that this second instance of plagiarism was in a speech Senator Paul gave more than once. In both cases, Paul was stealing the synopses of popular movies. Yesterday, it was the Ethan Hawke Sci-Fi Thriller GATTACA. Today, clips were found of Paul using Wiki's summary of Stand and Deliver, starring Edward James Olmos. Watching the clips, one gets the feeling that Paul never thought he'd be caught - to him, these Wiki texts were an easy way to play the entertaining educator while flexing his charming Southern drawl. What a smug, lazy jerk. According to Rachel Maddow, the senator has so far refused to answer any questions about the findings - including queries from his hometown newspaper.
Not very surprising and probably of zero importance to his base, sadly. They'll be all like "he is teh smart! use wiklopedia and computorz!"
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that instead of coming up with it himself, Rand Paul used someone else's movie synopsis as part of a speech he gave? That settles it. He can't lead this country.
I don't think anyone really believes that Rand Paul is a MENSA candidate to begin with... so not a big deal.
Really, it would have been fine if he just attributed the source. He could have made it work effectively in the speech, by saying liberals will create a dystopian future as we see in GATTACA, etc. It's not classy to quote without attribution, and it's poor form for an elected official giving a speech on policy, but it's not a huge deal either.
Rand loses it over plagiarism charges. Says he would murder accusers if he could. In an appearance on ABC's "This Week," Paul dismissed the claims. "Yes, there are times when [speeches] have been sloppy or not correct or we've made an error," Paul said. "But the difference is, I take it as an insult and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting. I have never intentionally done so." He continued, "And like I say, if, you know, if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know, it would be a duel challenge. But I can't do that, because I can't hold office in Kentucky then."
W.T.F. Just, wow. Not very presidential. Not even very sane. I don't even care about him lifting lines from science fiction; as others have said, it's not very surprising even though it's poor form. He needs to just blame a speech writer and move on. I'm mostly concerned that he is so anti-science, anti-fact, anti-mathematics, and anti-logic.
He is just another idiot who is so insecure that he can't and won't admit when he is wrong. The whole thing could have been swept under the rug with the proper response...but...
Agreed. There are lots of good reasons not to vote for Ran Paul or take him for more than a simplistic semi-libertarian/ Tea Party ideologue.
