McCain camp (Caught) dismisses plagiarism rap

Politico

John McCain's campaign is denying a suggestion made yesterday that the candidate's lengthy response yesterday to the crisis in Georgia was lifted in part from Wikipedia.

"We did not copy Wikipedia in Sen. McCain’s remarks," said spokesman Brian Rogers.

Three portions of the GOP nominee's statement yesterday were seized upon by an editor for the online encyclopedia and sent to blogger Taegan Goddard with the claim that the words seemed to match the Wiki entry for Georgia.

The first two instances, Goddard noted, seemed especially similar.

Wiki's entry has Georgia as "one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

McCain's statement said Georgia was "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

On the country's history, Wiki has: "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."

McCain said: "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 aides countered that there are only so many ways to state basic historical facts and dates and that any similarities to Wikipedia were only coincidental. But they wouldn't say outright that it wasn't consulted.

The deeper concern is that the claim could undermine McCain's expertise on foreign affairs ..........

**********************

STRAIGHT TALK EXPELLED?

The Washington Post detailed an interesting facet of higher education on Sunday with an article about the travails of two college students kicked out of a University of Virginia summer program due to violating the school's honor code ("An Education in the Dangers of Online Research").

The students' infractions occurred when they paraphrased material from the much-maligned online resource Wikipedia and then failed to cite it properly in their research paper. While some students cried foul over this implementation of U.Va.'s strict honor code, an unusual event a day after the article was published served as a reminder that plagiarism, intentional or not, can befall anyone--even a presidential candidate.

Political Wire blogger Taegan Goddard pointed out Monday that John McCain, in a speech addressing the escalating conflict between Russia and Georgia, presented an overview of Georgian history using phrases oddly similar to some found on the country's Wikipedia page.

While McCain, himself, had nothing to do with writing the speech, it should be noted that, were he a student at U.Va., he would likely be facing a trial by fellow students and staff rather than some vague criticisms from left-leaning blogs strewn across the Web.