Walsh (top); Paul (bottom)
“Whooo are you? Who, who, who, who?”
U.S. Senator John Walsh (D-Mt) has an obligation to resign.
He was never elected to office; Montana Governor Steve Bullock appointed him to fill the vacant seat of Max Baucus, who resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China. Though he was Montana’s Lieutenant Governor at the time, Walsh’s primary qualification for the job was his military record and honors, including a master’s degree at the U.S. War College. The New York Times revealed this week that Walsh’s 2007 thesis, titled “The Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy,” was substantially plagiarized, copied from other sources without attribution. Now the War College is investigating to determine whether Walsh’s degree should be revoked.
If this happened to a partner at a law firm, he would be fired. If it happened to a professor at a respectable university, he would be terminated. When it has happened to high ranking corporate officers, they have usually been forced to resign. The importance of honesty and trustworthiness to the duties of a U.S. Senator are more important than either of these. Moreover, the fact that he could not complete an adequate 14 page thesis ( I am still reeling that the War College hands out masters degrees for such paltry work) without stealing the word of others does not inspire faith in his abilities as a lawmaker. Walsh has an obligation to resign.
Instead, he has been making lame excuses and rationalizations, and encouraging others to lie for him. He and his supporters are calling this “a mistake.” Using someone else’s work to make up 25% of your masters thesis and taking credit for it is not a “mistake.” It is proof of a deficit in character. Had his plagiarism been discovered when he submitted the paper, he would have been kicked out of the masters program, presumably. The military is especially strict regarding dishonesty and dishonorable conduct. Would he have been appointed if that had occurred? Presumably not. At least I hope not.
Flailing to find an escape, Walsh has played the veteran pity card, suggesting that the plagiarism may have been the result of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It doesn’t matter why he plagiarized, though this seems like a particularly slimy excuse. He plagiarized. His current credentials, which were among the factors that got him nominated, were based on a lie.
As typically happens, his party has announced that they are behind the plagiarizer “100%,” calling its own integrity into question. My respect for either party would increase exponentially if they did not wait for a strong negative reaction from the public and the media to do what is obviously the right thing, which in this case would be to tell Walsh to quit. Instead, Democrats have joined in Walsh’s spin, claiming that the “mistakes” in his thesis were “unintentional.” This is laughable, as the lifts from other works include classic plagiarism clues, like small word changes. The Times has made an iron-clad case that Walsh was cheating, and the Washington Post’s Factchecker gave his campaign’s claim that it was just a big accident “four Pinnochios,” meaning that he, and it, are lying through their teeth.
What about the recent plagiarism scandal on the other side of the Senate aisle, the revelation that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) plagiarized Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute papers as well as Wikipedia in his book and in speeches? Well, I would admire a Senator who resigned on that basis, and since I don’t admire Paul very much and didn’t even before I learned he was dishonest in this regard, I would have respected him more than I do now if he had resigned while expressing contrition. It is affirmatively harmful to the culture’s values when elected officials engage in such conduct. However, Paul was not elected based on false credentials, at least, not that we know of. His plagiarism is on the same scale as the current Vice-President, who infamously cribbed not only other politicians’ words, but a British politician’s life story. That’s enough for me not to trust Biden, just as Paul’s plagiarism is sufficient for me not to trust him, and this is magnified by Paul’s unethical reaction, which was to blame his critics. The Hill’s blogger on Congressional matters, Mitchell Blatt, put it well in his post regarding Paul (but it applies to Walsh as well):
“Paul hasn’t asked the public for permission to lie to us. When you write a book with your name on it, you are representing that the work inside the book is your own. Paul seems to have a track record of wanting to get credit for other people’s work in order to inflate his own personal image.”
Sen. Paul’s dishonesty is deplorable, but Walsh’s is disqualifying. He should resign, and if the Democrats don’t insist on it, they should pay a heavy price.
Facts: The Hill, U.S. News, Washington Post, New York Times
Ethics Alarms 
I note that none of the wire stories I have read in my local newspaper indicate that Walsh is a Democrat. An unintentional omission, perhaps?
Is that true? The Times story certainly did. The fact that he was appointed is core to the story, and his party affiliation is material.
Wait a minute – something doesn’t add up here. You state that President Obama appointed him to replace Baucus. How is that possible? Different states have different protocols for replacing a Senator, but to the best of my knowledge Presidents are not allowed to do so.
Also, please check your phone for a text message from me.
1. Yup—that was a mistake…but an honest one…I didn’t steal it. Governor Steve Bullock made the appointment. Just fixed it. Luckily, not essential to the post. Thanks.
2. Will do.
Story in today’s Virginia Pilot under by-line of Nick Corasaniti and Jonthan Martin of the New York Times does not contain party affiliation and indicates he is up for re-election. [I thought to be re-elected, you had to be elected in the first place.] No mention of being appointed.
Make that Virginian Pilot, pg.12
No private citizen would get away with the kind of lies our politicians toss off without conscience.
That alone should make us aware that trusting such people with large parts of our lives is a dumb idea.
I suppose everyone has a little part of their past that isn’t pretty. That’s what makes us want to cut a little slack for others. But, we have to get over excusing our leaders for massive fraud because they have the “correct” ideology. No good comes from having leaders who are allowed to break the rules the rest of us have to follow.
That’s why we need to replace politicians frequently and pay attention, and it’s why this blog and others are so important.
When I’m feeling extremely optimistic I think it might not be too late. But I’ the sort of optimist that looks like a pessimist after years of experience.
One site I frequent deals harshly with any kind of plagarism, and posts in a hall of shame with the offending works and the investigative paper trail. It’s a plague, as too many people seem to think it’s a no harm crime. I admit I am sometimes reluctant to look for beta reviewers for my fiction because even name authors have been cribbed from, like Nora Roberts by another. Given that there are software tools to help look for it after Primary Colors and for student writing, it’s just dumbth to do it.
Fourteen pages for a masters? Where can I sign up? My ag based high school in Reagan years demanded twice that for a paper.
There is something odd about Walsh’s paper. It looks as if it was written by someone who has no real knowledge or original ideas on the subject. It looks as if it was written to just get “something down on paper”. I tend to think that Walsh had someone else write this paper for him. And it certainly doesn’t look like any thesis I have ever seen.
Personal opinion, no more….I detest Rand Paul and think he may be a lunatic, but his plagiarism was just pure lazy. Walsh, on the other hand, (and here I agree totally with Sharon) was the act of a desperate man who had no original thoughts and desperately needed something to qualify for a Master’s.
I’d agree with that. Paul’s response to the plagiarism allegations, however, were revealing, and don’t reflect well on his character at all.
No, they don’t, but then, he’s a politician. Can’t really expect him to say “Well, I just did it because I’m too bone lazy to actually do the research/come up with catchy phrases on my own”, you know. After all, he’s working for the “Good of the American people”. And you can believe as much of that as you want to.
Borrowing from speeches is one thing—that’s traditional. Using scholarly works by others to beef up your book, however, may be laziness, but its also fraud.
Apparently not a “thesis”, more of a “term paper”, or even a monthly assignment.
But plagiarised, yes. Should have been an automatic failure of the unit. If a second offense, expulsion from the program with no chance of re-admission, and a warning on the academic transcript to look out for this offense for any institution willing to admit them in future.
Some have been known to reform as the result of this policy. The idea is to put the Fear of God in them so they never do it again, without necessarily completely and irretrievably ruining their lives.
When the situation is not so clear-cut – when a group of students each produce work with too much similarity, even if none of the sentences match exactly – I mark one, then divide the marks by the number of students submitting, and grade each submission with that mark. A good 9/10 answer submitted by 3 students gives them 3/10 each.