NY Times Astonished by Canadian Media's Lack of Coverage on Harper's Plagiarism

[kEiThZ]

I am with Afransen on this..... the nerd seems to have taken the hit for the leader.

Nevertheless, I don't really care about this kind of stuff. All it does is distract from talking about real issues.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'd say that a supposed strong leader's need to plagiarize another foreign leader's speech on the most important foreign policy issue of the decade should be a real issue.

 

[Hydrogen]

I would expect more subtle plagiarism, if any at all. This was not subtle.

But seriously. Someone with a doctorate in english literature. An expert in intellectual property. Lifts half a speech without changing a word.

All I'm saying is that he seems like a fall guy. Who knows who actually is responsible. Remember, at first the Tories insisted that every member of their staff had moved on since that point in time, yet a few hours later they trotted out a sacrificial lamb?

Again, the possession of a graduate degree does not suddenly make a person immune from carrying out the act of plagiarism. Nor does a PhD stop an individual from being sloppy or lazy while being stupid.

You assume he is the fall guy, but look at it from the other direction: the speech writer hid behind the authority of the PM to carry out his little act of laziness. Because the speech was going to come from the Prime Minister, the writer probably assumed that no one was going to look very closely, and if they did, that the PM would get the blame first - which he did.

As for the time it took to find who wrote the speech, what of it? It sounds like they scrambled to investigate the situation themselves - considering how long ago the event took place.

 

[Brian69]

I can understand that Harper may be anathema to some for his policies but I don't think many would consider him to be dense enough to do this knowingly, especially seeing as so much of it was taken word for word and the video evidence is easy to acquire. If evidence comes out that he knew that it was plagiarized when he read it then I would imagine the hit on his credibility would be significant and deserved. Until then it's a case of a stupid move by a staffer.

I think its more realistic to point to this as being one more in a trend of gaffes by Harper people that doesn't reflect well on the PM rather than being a more direct hit on Harper's character.

 

[unimaginative2]

Because the speech was going to come from the Prime Minister, the writer probably assumed that no one was going to look very closely

I can't think of a speech that would be scrutinized more closely than one coming from the Prime Minister, or in the case of Harper at the time, the Leader of the Opposition. Remember that if he had been Prime Minister at the time, Canadians would be in Iraq. That was the entire subject of the speech in question.

 

[lordmandeep]

imo that is something that will haunt Harper forever.... ^^^^

 

[Hydrogen]

I can't think of a speech that would be scrutinized more closely than one coming from the Prime Minister...

Then you explain why the similarities were not caught earlier.

 

[unimaginative2]

Luck.

 

[Hydrogen]

Of course, they all missed it - after so much scrutiny.