How is the Pagisarism charge against Senator Walsh playing in MT?

[platoonDaddy]

Montana Senator John Walsh used plagiarism to get promoted

http://www.redstate.com/2014/07/24/montana-senator-john-walsh-used-plagiarism-get-promoted/

EDIT: He is now citing PTSD in apparent thesis plagiarism. Dang what a crock of dog-shit. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/23/sen-john-walsh-cites-ptsd-in-thesis-plagiarism-explanation/

[MarkG]

Was there any doubt he would play the PTSD card? PTSD has become so convenient for so many it's disturbing...

[Hot Holster]

Wouldn't it be special if for just once someone would own up to their screw up, and shoulder the blame rather than deflecting it?

[BBossman]

PTSD is real, but like the claim of "racism", when misused as a means to deflect scrutiny or responsibility, it diminishes those instances when its legitimate. Next he'll attack the promotion system as unfairly stressful.

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

[glocktogo]

Wouldn't it be special if for just once someone would own up to their screw up, and shoulder the blame rather than deflecting it?

Regardless of what he was in a previous life, he's definitely a politician now! :(

[montanadave]

Steve Daines already had Walsh playing defense and this will cook his goose. If anyone was already sick of the negative, attack ads in the campaign, I suggest you buckle your chinstrap.

[MountainRaven]

Bullock should have never appointed Walsh in the first place.

I'm no fan of Daines, but I concur with Dave: Walsh is done.

ETA: Hell, Bullock may be a One-and-Done governor after this, too. It's not like folks didn't know that Walsh was already on incredibly shaky ground going into the Senate.

At this point, I'm wondering if maybe the Dems would have been smarter to let Baucus's term expire and nominate somebody other than Walsh to run for the seat. Then give Baucus the ambassadorship to China.

[Bolt_Overide]

Just being a vet doesn't mean you're honest.

[montanadave]

Walsh's campaign cancelled a couple of events in Bozeman this morning on short notice. Following the newspaper editorials out of Billings and Missoula last week advising him to withdraw from the race, I suspect an announcement from Walsh will be forthcoming.

[platoonDaddy]

Walsh's campaign cancelled a couple of events in Bozeman this morning on short notice. Following the newspaper editorials out of Billings and Missoula last week advising him to withdraw from the race, I suspect an announcement from Walsh will be forthcoming.

MONTANA DEMOCRATIC Sen. John Walsh drops out of his Senate race after being dogged by allegations of plagiarism, potentially boosting Republicans' chances of picking up the seat in November.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/07/dem-sen-walsh-drops-out-montana-senate-race/

[MountainRaven]

Yup. Dems have until the middle of the month sometime to nominate another candidate.

There really aren't a lot of national-level political folks in Montana. So they have got their work cut out for them. Apparently some folks were trying to 'draft' Jeff Bridges.

[montanadave]

I am deeply saddened that the big Lebowski has chosen not to enter Montana's Senate race.

He had me at "dude!" :haha:

[Palmguy]

The New York Times (of all outlets) presented a pretty interesting analysis of Walsh's thesis: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/23/us/politics/john-walsh-final-paper-plagiarism.html?_r=0

[montanadave]

The New York Times (of all outlets) presented a pretty interesting analysis of Walsh's thesis: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/23/us/politics/john-walsh-final-paper-plagiarism.html?_r=0

In looking over that analysis, I think Walsh may have gotten a bum rap. The errors of attribution seem to me, as a layman and not an academic or professional editor, to involve sloppy style rather than intent to plagiarize the work of others. The paper is replete with footnotes, so it's difficult for me to see Walsh as trying to take credit for someone else's work product.

I've got a MS degree. I wrote my fair share of research papers. And I don't know if my work could stand up to this sort of editorial dissection. Graduate work at the master's level does not involve much original work; it's fundamentally a lot of research and compilation of previously published material. I knocked together countless papers by doing a thorough literature search, accumulating a stack of journal articles, and assimilating bits and pieces to illuminate my subject. I always referenced the original works, footnoted quotes and key ideas, and made every attempt to credit the original author. But I have no doubt that someone subjecting my work to this same level of scrutiny might find similar errors.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Walsh. The Army War College is going to investigate the issue and will render it's own conclusions. But, at first blush, I'm inclined to think the NYT did a hit job on Walsh and the rest of the media seized on the "plagiarist" label and ran with it. When I hear the word plagiarism, I think of someone ripping off someone else's work and presenting it as wholly original with no mention of another's contribution. Given the frequency of footnotes and the bibliography in Walsh's paper, I have a hard time equating his transgressions to those of a newspaper columnist stealing another writer's article or a politician copying someone else's stump speech.

[platoonDaddy]

Believe you are onto something montanadave, reference his campaign staff reply:

“Senator Walsh included 96 citations for a 14-page paper at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He acknowledges the citations were not all done correctly, but that it was an unintentional mistake.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/07/25/the-walsh-campaigns-claim-that-the-senators-plagiarism-was-merely-incorrect-citations/