Maureen Dowd, plagiarist, ex Catholic, now lists her religion as
"paganism" (of course, she is now under the influence of satan.)
She continues her relentless vitriol against the Pope and the Catholic
Church -- it takes no rocket scientist to know that, or else these
folks would not be "ex" and have left the Church. She now says
there should be a "sexorcism" to rid the Church of the bad priests.
The Maureen Dowd Plagiarism Scandal
By Jonathan Bailey • May 18th, 2009 • Category: Articles, News, Punditry
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It has become something of a custom on this site to offer analysis and opinion on every great plagiarism scandal
that breaks.
I did it with the Obama, McCain and the recent Biden scandal. So, it is only fitting that we also take a few moments
to analyze
the the recent allegations (and confessions) of Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist accused of plagiarism.
Though a journalist caught plagiarizing a quote is no longer a huge scandal, even one as well-known as Dowd, what
makes this
case interesting to many is that Dowd, back in 1987, Dowd broke the story of then-Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s
alleged
plagiarism and vigorously attacked Biden for it.
Now, 20 years later, Biden is the Vice President and it is Dowd who faces very pointed and very public allegations
of plagiarism.
Though the New York Times appears to be standing by Dowd in the face of the accusations, saying that it was an
error and has
now been corrected, many have been celebrating the turn of events.
So question becomes whether or not Dowd plagiarized and, if so, how serious are the allegations? I decided to take
a look at the
passages and see for myself.
What Happened
Yesterday, a blogger on Talking Points Memo (TPM) noticed that a paragraph from Maureen Dowd’s Sunday online column
bore
a striking resemblance to a paragraph in a post by TPM’s editor Josh Marshall from earlier in the week.
Upon further examination, it become clear that the two paragraphs, both over 40 words, were identical save for
one minor alteration.
The story first appeared on TPM and quickly caught fire on liberal blogs, especially The Huffington Post.
The exact quotes are as follows, in Dowd’s column, she said the following:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it
seemed to happen mainly
during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the
invasion of Iraq.
Marshall’s column, from earlier in the week, had this paragraph:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it
seemed to happen mainly
during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of
Iraq.
Between the two columns, there was only one change, where Marshall said “We”, Dowd said “the Bush crowd”. It was
a near-perfect
plagiarism, but not necessarily a very damming one. [Why not?
Dowd’s Response
Eventually, Dowd was force to respond and she admitted to the plagiarism in an email to the Huffington post saying:
josh is right. I didn’t read his blog last week, and didn’t have any idea he had made that point until you informed
me just now. i was
talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a
cogent — and I assumed
spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall
without mentioning
that to me. we’re fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction
tomorrow.
[They all say that when caught.]
The only story was corrected to give attribution to Marshall and a correction was also printed in the next day’s
edition of The New York Times
directing people to the new column on the Web.
However, the controversy is ongoing. Many are starting the process of looking through Dowd’s other work, including
her book, and it seems
likely that any instance of copying, no matter how slight, will be attacked. [She now has no credibility]
Short URL to this Post: http://copybyte.com/z/lh
| Accusations Against Pope Benedict XVI controversy Ms Dowd has made serious accusation against Pope Benedict the XVI[23], accusing him of a cover up in the case of sexual abuse by Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy. Per Ms Dowd’s March 28, 2010 Column “when he (Pope Benedict) was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy.” However several sources have challenged Ms Dowd's assertions and the accuracy of her facts, most notably that at the time of Rev. Murphy’s abuse, some fifty years earlier, the future Pope had yet to attain any high position where he would have been involved in the case. |