Colorado  gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis did the impossible: he made Richard Blumenthal look honest by comparison.

McGinnis, a Republican, has admitted that a recent story in the Denver Post, alleging that articles he had written on water issues for a foundation grant were significantly  plagiarized from the writings of a Colorado Supreme Court justice, was factually correct. Then McInnis came up with an astounding non-explanation that was even more unconvincing than the Connecticut Attorney General’s excuse that his repeated and false claims of Vietnam war service were mere slips of the tongue. McInnis’s excuse was that a researcher helping him with the articles actually was the one who copied the judge’s writings, and never told him about it. The researcher promptly denied the accusation, but that’s not as important as this: McInnis wasn’t supposed to be using a researcher at all. He was paid $300,000 in 2006 by the Hassan Family Foundation for what was supposed to be a fellowship, during which he would record his thoughts, as a former U.S. Congressman, on water policy. He was supposed to submit original work, and even signed a letter stating that “all articles are original and not reprinted from any other source.” McInnis’s excuse, therefore, simply substitutes one form of cheating for another. Whether he copied from the judge without permission or attribution, or whether he used the work of a ghostwriter (who copied from the judge) without disclosing it, he accepted $300,000 for presenting the work of another as his own.

According to the Denver Post article, whole sections of one of McInnis’s articles for the Foundation were copied reprinted verbatim from Justice Hobbs’ work, and other sections were identical to Hobbs’ writings as well. Seeme Hasan, chairwoman of the Hassan Foundation board, was not impressed with McInnis’s explanation. She said she was “shocked, angry and disappointed”  and would demand the repayment of the $300,000 should the plagiarism charge prove to be true. She also said the Foundation did not approve of  McInnis  using a researcher to help him, and that this would have been contrary to their explicit understanding.

“The work that the foundation hired Mr. McInnis to do was to be done solely by Mr. McInnis, and not in concert with anyone else,” she said. “At no time was it brought to our attention that Mr. McInnis used information not cited or unethically used work that was not his own. All work was represented to be original and final.”

At worst, then, McInnis took $300,000 under false pretenses, didn’t do what he was paid to do or what he promised to do, and dishonestly passed off the work of another as his own. At best, under his scenario…well, the same thing, really.

Oh yes…I almost for got to mention that he’s done this before. A 1994 column McInnis wrote for The Rocky Mountain News and a Congressional speech he gave in 1995 included passages that were taken without attribution from a Washington Post op-ed on North Korea.

But what’s a little dishonesty, intellectual property theft, lack of accountability, laziness and fraud got to do with being Governor of Colorado? McInnis thinks his plagiarism and taking foundation money under false pretenses is irrelevant. In an interview with 9News in Denver, McInnis dismissed the plagiarism was a “non-issue,” and assured the television station that “voters don’t really care about this issue.”

They had better start caring. The percentage of state governors in recent years who have been indicted, imprisoned or barely escaped punishment despite clear criminal activity may well be higher than that of the general population. The nation came perilously close to electing a narcissistic liar, John Edwards, Vice-President of the United States. The former mayor of Detroit is in jail; the former Governor of Illinois may be headed there; the former Governor of New York should probably be there now. These worthy public servants were elected without clear prior evidence that they shouldn’t be trusted. It it is national suicide to elect the Blumenthals, Mark Kirks, and others who have already indicated that they are habitual liars.

And Scott McInnis may be worse than any of them, the most shamelessly unethical of all.

Do you care, Colorado?