Here's the passages (from Political Insider):
First instance:
"one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)
vs.
one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion" (McCain)
Second instance:
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)
vs.
After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)
We know John McCain didn't do this plagiarism himself because McCain doesn't know how to use a computer.
But McCain's speechwriter (probably Mark Salter) appears to know so little about Georgia that he had to go to an online encyclopedia for information and is such a poor writer that he had to plagiarize.
The problem for McCain here is that the only expertise his campaign appears to have access to is his own.
What happens if McCain's elected president?
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2 comments:
I see this as a non-issue. We all get our information from somewhere. Wikipedia is a free access web site without direct copyright protection. Yah, it sounded pretty much like a direct quote but it is not like it was in a state of the union address. Wikipedia got the information from somewhere else no doubt so it is just historic data. The McCain camp isn't stealing someone's political theory or new idea. You as a professor would know that Wikipedia is rated right up there under the National Enquirer as far as reliability is concerned.
About the Christianity quote -- there are only so many ways to phrase that statement and any way you say it would sound similar. All this tells us is what you indicated about McCain's staff. They probably don't have a clue about world geography or the historical background of the region of Georgia. They must rely on Wikipedia to run their campaign. I'm not sure what McCain is really good at? Not the economy, not the Middle East, not world geography, not computers, and he wants to be president? We can just call him the Wikipedia president.
I agree that the plagiarism is much of an issue here. It's the fact that his staff had to look up information in Wikipedia at all. It's the fact that McCain's staff has so little knowledge of foreign affairs. I don't see how McCain could be a successful president if he's a one-man band.
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