Copycat.
I feel bad about what I’m going to do here.
I’ve had a lot of fun at Tim Goeglein’s expense over the last few months. Mean-spirited fun, certainly, but my problem with him has always been one of personal taste. In his columns for The News-Sentinel, my old newspaper, he personifies a certain sort of apple-cheeked Hoosier drippiness, which undoubtedly masks a core of white-hot ambition. I mean, he worked at the right hand of Karl Rove, and remains in the White House. But while he works in the West Wing, he chooses to write awful, turgid essays on the wonders of Hoagy Carmichael, deceased operatic composers and his parents’ marriage. I know it’s unfair to expect policy analyses, but it’s maddening to think that here’s this guy, a home-towner, eyewitness to an epochal period in American history, and he gives us Odes to Summer. Why he chooses to do so for the failing paper in a two-newspaper town, one with a circulation that probably barely nudges 30,000 these days, remains a mystery. (I’ve heard theories: He does it for his mother, and He plans to run for office soon, and he’s raising his local profile. Don’t really care, anyway. He’s just fun to make fun of.
When William F. Buckley died this week, one of my first thoughts was that he’d been friends with Tim, and we would almost certainly have a long, overwrought, superlative-packed column coming down the pike soon, and we’d have ourselves a good time giggling over it. When I saw he had a piece in the paper Thursday, the day after Buckley died, I thought for a second the wait was over, then spotted the headline — Education: Ideas worth defending, honesty of reflective thought — and realized, no, this has been in the pipeline for a while.
Not that it was a total disappointment. I started to read, and a name jumped out at me — “Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey,” described as a “notable professor of philosophy at Dartmouth.” Now, I’m sure Tim’s spare brain space isn’t cluttered, as mine is, with “American Idol,” the internet and what’s-for-dinner concerns. Certainly string quartets waft through his paneled study, where he reads and thinks under the mounted ibex head, far from the vulgar buzz of pop culture. Surely he can acquaint himself with notable professors of philosophy at Dartmouth while I watch the Oscars. But this name was so goofy, just for the hell of it, I Googled it. And look what I found.
Tim:
A notable professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College in the last century, Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey, expressed the matter succinctly. His wisdom is not only profound but also worth pondering in this new century. He said, “The goal of education is to form the Citizen. And the Citizen is a person who, if need be, can re-found his civilization.”
He meant that, I think, in quite a large sense. He did not mean that you had to master all the specialties you can think of, but rather to be an educated man or woman, you needed to be familiar with the large and indispensable components of our civilization.
This does not mean you should not study other cultures and civilizations. It does mean that to be a citizen of this one, you should be aware of what it is and where it — we — came from. It can hardly be challenged that the United States of America is part of the narrative of European history.
“What is a College Education?” by Jeffrey Hart, writing in the Dartmouth Review (cite is unclear, but from the URL it appears to be from 1998):
A notable Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth, Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey often expressed the matter succinctly, “The goal of education,” he would say, “is to form the Citizen. And the Citizen is a person who, if need be, can re-found his civilization.”
He meant that in quite large a sense. He did not mean that you had to master all the specialties you can think of.
He meant that you need to be familiar with the large and indispensable components of your — this — civilization.
This certainly does not mean that you should not study other cultures and civilizations. It does mean that to be a Citizen of this one you should be aware of what it is and where it came from.
It can scarcely be challenged that the United States is part of the narrative of European history.
My, my, my. Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
Not an accidental or delicate one, either. The piece (Tim’s) goes on:
It can hardly be challenged that the United States of America is part of the narrative of European history. Europe is overwhelmingly the source, and some parts of Europe more than others: Our language, literature, legal tradition, political arrangements derive, demonstrably, from England. This Britain-America connection is central.
There have been many ways of answering the question: What is Europe? A handy way to think of the matter is the paradigm of “Athens” and “Jerusalem.” In this paradigm, those terms designate both the two cities we have all heard of but also two kinds of mind. The tradition designated “Athens” is associated with philosophy and with critical exercise of mind, with reason. The tradition associated with “Jerusalem” is associated with monotheism, with faith.
Hart:
It can scarcely be challenged that the United States is part of the narrative of European history. It owes little or nothing to Confucius or Laotse or to Chief Shaka or to the Aztecs. At the margin it owes a bit to the American Indians, but not a great deal — corn, tobacco, some legendary material. But Europe is overwhelmingly the source. And some parts of Europe more than others: Our language, legal tradition, political arrangements derive, and demonstrably so, from England.
There have been many ways of answering the question, “What is Europe?” But a handy way to think of the matter is the paradigm of “Athens” and “Jerusalem.” In this paradigm, those terms designate both the two cities we have all heard of, and also two kinds of mind.
The tradition designated “Athens” is associated with philosophy and with critical exercise of mind. The tradition associated with “Jerusalem” is associated with monotheism.
Note that Tim leaves out the gratuitous swipe at non-European cultures. Well, the original was written a few years ago, and times have changed. But other than a word here and there — Hart likes “scarcely,” while Tim goes for “hardly” — these two great minds think alike. A lot alike:
On the side of Athens, you would want to learn something about Homer, who in many ways laid the basis of Greek philosophy, and you would need to meet Plato, Aristotle, Socrates — the three greatest Greek philosophers — as well as the Greek dramatists, historians, architects and sculptors.
Over in Jerusalem, you would find the epic account of the career of monotheism as it worked its way out in history. The scriptures, like Homer, have their epic heroes — Moses most dramatically — and like the Greek tradition in some ways, they refine and internalize the epic virtues. Athens and Jerusalem, reason and faith, interact, and much flows from this interaction that results in the fullest expression of the educated man and woman.
The intellectually exciting thing is that with Athens and Jerusalem as the foundations, you would follow all of this down through the centuries, through Virgil (the great Roman poet), Augustine, Dante (who is perhaps the greatest poet of Western culture), Shakespeare (who is probably our greatest playwright), Cervantes, Montaigne, Moliere, Voltaire, Goethe and on to modernity. “The best that has been thought and said,” as Matthew Arnold called it. The mind of Europe as T.S. Eliot put it, “from Homer to the present.”
That was Tim. This is Hart:
On the side of “Athens” you will want to learn something about Homer, who in many ways laid the basis of Greek philosophy, and you will need to meet Plato, Aristotle, the Greek dramatists, historians, architects and sculptors.
Over in “Jerusalem” you will find the epic account of the career of monotheism as it worked its way out in history. The scriptures like Homer, have their epic heroes, and, like the Greek tradition in some ways they refine and internalize the epic virtues. “Athens” and “Jerusalem” interact and much flows from the interaction.
You will follow all of this down through the centuries, through Virgil and Augustine, and Dante, in Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, Moliere, Voltaire, Goethe and on to modernity. “The best that has been thought and said, “ as Matthew Arnold called it. The mind of Europe as T.S. Eliot put it, “from Homer to the present.”
Interestingly, Jeffrey Hart himself is quite the character, another aide to a president (Nixon, Reagan), a spiritual and intellectual brother to Tim. As for the Dartmouth Review, well, most people know the story of one of the first high-profile right-wing student publications, that gave an early-career boost to Dinesh D’Souza and Laura Ingraham, among others. (Tim went to Indiana University.) All accounts paint a picture of a dedicated academic who, you’d think, would frown on one of academia’s most serious sins. I look forward to hearing his reaction, if any.
I mentioned at the top of this post that I feel bad about what I’m going to do here. (I stole that line, by the way; it’s Nora Ephron’s opening for her devastating profile of Dorothy Schiff’s New York Post. Now that I’ve given credit, it’s not plagiarism, it’s an homage. See how it works?) I feel bad because my old buddy Leo Morris, who edits the op-ed pages, is going to bear the brunt of this — the investigation, the uncomfortable announcement to readers, the search through the archives for more time bombs, the embarrassment of being took by someone any editor would trust, a self-styled intellectual and senior White House aide, for crying out loud. But either this stuff is important or it isn’t, and I say it is.
UPDATE: Thanks to the Kenosha Kid, in comments, who finds more evidence of unattributed sourcing, in the Hoagy Carmichael essay linked above. The rifled pockets were those of Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post. Way to pick an obscure source, Tim.
UPDATE 2: Since we’re getting some outside linkage today, a word about comments: I have mine set for “first-timers go to moderation,” and after that, you’re in. So if you’re a newbie, feel free to comment, but if it doesn’t appear right away, don’t keep trying. I’ll stay close to my computer today, but I have to run a few errands today, too, and will be out.
UPDATE 3: Tim comes clean. Thanks, Natalie, for the tipoff.
UPDATE 4 (and it’s hardly noon yet): Thanks to commenters Adam Stanhope and Grytpype Thynne, who did the work on the operatic composers piece, down in the comments. (Click here to go there directly.) I am reminded of a recent scene from “The Wire”: “You think the first time he gets caught is the first time he does it?” Apparently not.
UPDATE 5: And MOOOOOOOORE.
UPDATE 6: OK, this is funny, the News-Sentinel’s response. The subhed should be, “Nall? Never heard of her.” Oh, and keep following our bird dogs, Adam Stanhope and Grytpype Thynne, in the comments. I can’t keep up any more and I have to step out for half an hour.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:18 am
One nail in each hand, one in his head and one in his feet. Excellent work, Nancy. Reminds me of when a then-OU student (not you that time), now managing editor, threw the switch on a Sunday magazine writer.
And you’re damned right. It is important.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:29 am
It is indeed. Gonna be fun to watch this play out.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Sort of dovetails with the To Catch a Self Abuser post…
Given the Bush admin connection, this could well become a minor national story, maybe even a ‘Worse (or Worser, or Worst) Person in the World turn on Olbermann!
February 29th, 2008 at 8:39 am
In the Department of Small Worlds, I couldn’t help but note that the original essay, Hart’s, opens with an anecdote that takes a backhanded swipe at the then-president of Brown University, Vartan Gregorian. Who also happens to be the father of one of my fellow j-fellows, Vahé Gregorian, a sportswriter for the St. Louis P-D. The elder Gregorian, now the president of the Carnegie Corp., was one of our speakers that year, and while Hart describes him as “almost supernaturally charming,” that doesn’t even begin to cover it. Hart took him to task for failing to support an Athens/Jerusalem core curriculum at Brown. All I can say is, if Vartan thinks an all-elective curriculum works, I’ll trust him.
(Supernaturally charming story: After the seminar, I shook his hand and he said, “What intelligent questions you asked! Why aren’t you working for the New York Times?” Ha.)
February 29th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Mother. Fucking. Templeton.
I’m sure there is a sourcing policy at the News-Sentinel, and you know it.
Nail his ass to the wall, Gus.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Mother. Fucking. Templeton. (My homage to ashley)
Brian’s right. Get this to Olbermann for Worst Person in the World.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Whenever I’ve caught a plagiarist at work (and I think my grand total is two), it’s because of that same nagging curiosity that led you to Google the oddly named prof. It always gives me the heebie-jeebies, though, because how many times have I felt that little twinge of something not quite right and dismissed it out of hand?
Good for you, Nance. Romenesko, here you come…
February 29th, 2008 at 9:02 am
[...] and has found that Tim Goeglein, White House Public Liaison officer and Karl Rove gopher, is a stone cold red-handed plagiarist.Look for the chatter to come down from Romanesko today like wild.Kudos to Nancy. Kudos to [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 9:03 am
This is really bizarre, and yet it isn’t, because if college students who flippin’ *live* on-line don’t get it, why would this loon?
But wouldn’t you think a guy with his job and involvements understand in his bones that a pajama-clad blogger can casually Google-check stuff like this, and it just falls off the screen and into your lap? What level of willful stupidity does it take? (Hint — one of the top levels, heavy on the willfulness.)
I sure know the anxiety of the deferred deadline and the sense of dryness groping for the start of the next paragraph, but even if i didn’t have RUDIMENTARY ethics, this middle-aged scribbler who still doesn’t own a digital camera and hates his cell phone knows that PLAGIARISM is not only theft, it’s easier to catch than theft, and my aversion to jail food (i’ve eaten a lot of it actually, but as a pastoral visitor who gets to leave when he wants) and the contempt of my peers would/has/will always keep me from even being tempted.
And Goeglein apparently not only has no ethics, he has no real sense of what the technology is capable of, or a peer group whose approval matters to him.
Nancy, very good work. I’ll say i had a vague sense of ventriloquism about his stuff, but i’ve only read what i see linked on your site, and had just put it down to a fairly limited mind aping his betters. Turns out i should have thought like he was a freshman, and then i might have had the grim satisfaction of pointing this one out to you myself.
Good news, Alex — he will never represent you in Congress! But i wouldn’t bet against him a few years from now running for the Indiana House, or Allen County recorder or something chastening like that.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:03 am
As a subscriber to said paper, subjected to aforementioned essays regularly, all I can say is: Thank you, Nancy.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I see Tim Goeglein is just a “red letter” text entry within Macedonian Americans at Wikipedia — time for an article on the fellow, anyone? (Yeah, yeah, but i gotta get to work now. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)
February 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Go, Nancy!
February 29th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Wow. Big haps around here this morning. Very good spot, Nancy.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Wow. Good for you. Is there a process now? Where does it go from here? I’m interested in how the policing of your profession works.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Wow, again. Thank you, Nancy. Reading your blog every day is a treat on so many levels. But it also makes the echo in the paper where your column used to be that much louder. We miss you in the Fort.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:01 am
4db, the process is pretty simple: Ball’s in their court. It’s been brought to the paper’s attention, so it’s up to them to contact the writer and get an explanation, then share it with their readers.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I don’t think even Templeton would be so ham-fisted as this.
damn, girl.
way to go.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:04 am
The News-Sentinel still hasn’t taken the damn thing down as of 10:00 AM.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Wow. And not even GOOD plagarism…more like something a not too bright college freshman would pull in ENG 101.
Wow.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I say this as a former Bush administration speechwriter: Anything that cuts down the number of dishonest morons in DC, regardless of the party to which the morons are attached, is a good thing.
Congrats on following those instincts and I hope the consequences of this follow Tim across the Potomac. There are too many hard working writers and thinkers of right and left in DC, many of whom struggle to find a place in politics, think tanks and the media, to have this kid taking up space.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:23 am
It’s up on Romenesko.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I didn’t realize he was such a punk. Had always thought from previous references that he was an old fart. He looks the part of a typical sucky-butt, eager-beaver frat-rat dork who’d think nothing of plagiarizing.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Well done, Nancy. The sad thing, people, is that anybody who thought this guy’s writing was a tad hinky could have done the same thing. I mean, google’s not just for checking out would-be suitors.
When the folks in TG’s corner start whining about liberals, blah blah, I hope everybody reminds ‘em who did what to whom.
I wonder where he’ll go for rehab.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:31 am
While I hope there will be the appropriate smackdown, I’m afraid you guys are just getting set up for a fall.
This schmuck works for a guy who doesn’t care that he’s drained the treasury and sent thousands of soldiers to their death. The same one who threw people under the bus (Valerie Plame) for shits and giggles. What’s copying obscure sources compared to that?
If Mr. Morals had any to begin with, he wouldn’t have done it, but then that fact’s been established a long time ago.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I bow before Nancy’s unbelievable talents. This is truly amazing to watch it unfold! Props to Nance.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am
OK - 2 liters of icy cold Diet Coke says that TG will eventually offer up some lame excuse, such as “Shoot! I Forgot the footnote!” or “Dang! Did I forget to say that the article was a homage?”…or if he’s really daring - “Great Balls of Fire!! I have been SET UP!! My deputy administrative assistant was tasked with the final edit of the piece”
But one card he canNOT play is “That Gol-durned liberal media is out to get me!”, ’cause my family and I have subscribed to the N-S for years, and read it, and it has been a close friend of ours…..and, folks, it’s NOT the ‘liberal media’!
February 29th, 2008 at 10:44 am
This schmuck works for a guy who doesn’t care that he’s drained the treasury and sent thousands of soldiers to their death. The same one who threw people under the bus (Valerie Plame) for shits and giggles. What’s copying obscure sources compared to that?
I don’t think anyone’s expecting that he’s going to get fired from his job with the Bush administration, but he’ll probably lose his newspaper column and his hopes of running for state office. The Bushies might not care that he’s a plagiarist, but voters sure would.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I say this as a former Bush administration speechwriter: Anything that cuts down the number of dishonest morons in DC, regardless of the party to which the morons are attached, is a good thing.
Well said, David. Of course, the problem is that many folks are so blindly partisan that it only cuts one way for them. Me, I say get as many of the crooks and cheats out too. I don’t care if it is my own ox getting gored.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Congrats on link at Atrios.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:54 am
[...] happenings over at NancyNall.com this a.m. It appears that detective Nancy (who is, btw, one of the crew over at NuPac) has reeled [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Remember what Tom Lehrer said - if you copy, it’s plagiarism, if you footnote, it’s research!
February 29th, 2008 at 11:03 am
He even ripped off the Hoagy Carmichael essay
February 29th, 2008 at 11:04 am
And now it is stuck in my head, I will have to listen to the mental tune all day: “Plagiarize. Let no one else’s work evade your eyes”…… Blogenfreude, it’s your fault.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Nope, he will certainly lose his Old Executive Office Building restroom key, parking permit, and White House Mess privileges for this one. Point taken on scale re: Iraq and other issues, but this is a job (Office of Public Liaison) where he can’t blot his copybook in such a fashion and keep his post.
Sadly, they may not fire him, but he will “leave to pursue other opportunties” before March decides on ending leonine-ically or sheepishly.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Curiously, I searched your blog for references to “Obama plagiarism” and got these results: “No posts found.” I guess it’s only interesting if it’s a conservative…
February 29th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Tim Goeglin, schooled!!
February 29th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Damn, that’s just … blatant. It’s one thing to unconciously echo a phrase here or there, but to pull whole grafs?
Ouch.
Oh, and Chemnitz, that’s the cheapest defense. “You didn’t write about this when so-and-so did it, so therefore this doesn’t matter!” Either the SENIOR WHITE HOUSE AIDE ripped somebody off or he didn’t. Most of us outgrow the “but Billy did it FIRST!” dodge by the time we hit typing age.
A.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:17 am
just saw this:
“Tim Goeglein, former Fort Wayne resident and now a special assistant to President George Bush, has been accused of plagiarism over a guest column about education that we carried on our editorial page on Thursday. While we look into the matter, we have taken the column down from our Web site. We are also checking out previous guest columns of Mr. Goeglien’s that we published. We will promptly report what we find.”
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080229/EDITORIAL/987174482
February 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Nope. You done good, Nance. Don’t feel bad.
I’ve been plagiarized a few times, and it made me very angry every time.
When you’re a professional writer, the only things you can offer of value are your words. When someone takes those from you, it’s plain and simple theft.
There are cases where people accidentally lift a phrase or two. I’ve caught myself doing it at least once, and I was embarrassed. (Especially since the writer I borrowed from was a hero of mine.)
But lifting entire passages of hundreds of words is larceny.
It’s bad enough that publishers expect us to write for free. It’s insulting when other people take our words without so much as “thank you.”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
It’s the American way for little chicken turds like him to slink away and wind up with a more obscure corporate or government post raking in a few hundred thousand a year for very little work, but at least he’s been outed and the whole episode has brightened my long, busy Friday.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
curiously, i searched your blog for references to “janet cooke made up story pulitzer prize” and got these results: “No posts found.” I guess you don’t write about what I want you to write about and you have not exhaustively covered this subject to my satisfaction–therefore either a) you are pure evil or b) i’m a total conservative idiot.
probably the latter.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Just trying to point out that if you don’t like it from Goeglein, I would think you’d hate it from Obama. Clearly, Obama’s speeches in campaigning for president are more significant than an essay for a Fort Wayne newspaper. Wake up to your hypocrisy.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Ha! Good work. I just saw this: http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080229/NEWS/194943667
February 29th, 2008 at 11:32 am
How ironic is it that he plagiarized an article about education? Kinda like the teachers who send home letters filled with spelling and grammar errors.
He’ll keep his job because all the other rats have deserted the sinking ship and Bush needs some friends around.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Aw, come on Chemnitz. This isn’t a political blog. If it were, you wouldn’t see such a variety of people posting. Nancy points out idiocy where she finds it and this is a real coup.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am
From Natalie’s great link
“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an email. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses.”
Wow! He manned up!
And now, he has to copy/paste his “It is true” statement, for Jonathon Yardley, and whatever other examples emerge….but he’s good at that!
February 29th, 2008 at 11:40 am
To our readers:
Building Strength and Muscle without Illegal Substances
Considering A Career Change? Go Where The Jobs Are
Now on the paper’s website’s front page:
Tim Goeglein, former Fort Wayne resident and now a special assistant to President George Bush, has been accused of plagiarism over a guest column about education that we carried on our editorial page on Thursday. While we look into the matter, we have taken the column down from our Web site. We are also checking out previous guest columns of Mr. Goeglein’s that we published. We will promptly report what we find.
oops, see I’m way behind….
February 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am
The Hoagy Carmichael story was plagiarized too? Wow.
And Chemnitz . . . shame on you.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Chemnitz, if Obama were truly guilty of plagiarism, then so would be Ronald Reagan (a/k/a Peggy Noonan). As Obama responded during his last debate with the Ice Queen, his national campaign co-chair gave him those words to use. If you believe this is plagiarism then surely you believe he’s an Islamofascist in disguise because his middle name’s Hussein. Just put a cork in it already, beeyotch.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:51 am
God, Chemnitz, talk about your double standard.
Obama uses words that *he has properly attributed in the past*, words that the original author told him to use as his own, and that’s “plagiarism”.
No. it’s not.
This WH turd used words that the authors were unaware were being used, changed a few, and passed them off as his own.
Now, *that’s* plagiarism.
I realize many GOoPers suffer from cranio-anal impaction, but it shouldn’t be too hard a job to figure out what’s stealing and what’s not.
Incidentally, how’s the air up there?
February 29th, 2008 at 11:53 am
[...] the ranks of conservative copycats like Ann Coulter and Ben “Box Turtle” Domenech. Nancy Nall: I feel bad about what I’m going to do [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am
from the News-Sentinel:
“…Nancy Nall, a former News-Sentinel columnist who writes a blog from her home in Michigan…”
I wonder if that’s a dig, that “from her home” part? It just seems unnecessary. How do they know she didn’t write it from a coffee-shop, or a train, or while she was getting her oil changed?
“… she didn’t write it from our oh-so professional offices staffed with the remnants of a dying profession…”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Chemnitz, i searched your blog for references to . . . wait, you don’t show a blog. Speaking as a life-long registered Republican, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles [or blogmistress - ed.] or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man [or blogger - ed.] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
From Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 Sorbonne speech. Lighten up, Francis.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The “operatic composers” article appears to be plagiarized as well.
Goeglein:
http://tinyurl.com/2wxluz
Robert Reilly in Crisis Magazine:
http://tinyurl.com/2j2uqo
February 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
There’s more. See here:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/june2007/music.htm
vs. here:
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070705/EDITORIAL/707050320
GOEGLEIN:
Menotti’s operas - there are 25 - achieved a high degree of popularity, for which he was punished with condescension. He was deemed too old-fashioned. In fact, in 1971, Menotti wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he said, “I hardly know of another artist who has been more consistently damned by critics … The insults that most of my operas had to endure through the years.”
REILLY:
Menotti’s operas (there are 25) achieved a high degree of popularity, for which he was punished, typically, with the aforementioned condescension. He was deemed too
“old-fashioned.” In 1971, Menotti wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he said, “I hardly know of another artist who has been more consistently damned by the critics. . . . The insults that most of my operas had to endure through the years would make a booklet as terrifying as Malleus Maleficarum [The Witches’ Hammer, a medieval guidebook for prosecuting sorcery cases].”
GOEGLEIN:
Despite the criticism, he never surrendered the role of beauty. We can now hear one of his strongest expressions of it in his masterpiece, Missa: O Pulchritudo, released on a recording for the first time earlier this year.
REILLY:
Despite criticism, Menotti never surrendered the role of beauty. We can now hear one of his strongest expressions of it in the appropriately named Missa: O Pulchritudo.
GOEGLEIN:
My first reaction upon hearing it was: What kind of cultural prejudice kept this remarkable piece on ice for 25 years? This may be the most beautiful music Menotti composed. Beauty is actually its theme…
REILLY:
My first reaction was: What kind of cultural prejudice kept this recording on ice for 25 years? This may be the most beautiful thing Menotti wrote. Beauty is its theme.
[This part is intellectually disgusting:
GOEGLEIN:
Menotti once said, “I have to face Him [God] one of these days, and we have little discussions, private discussions … I’m trying to get an answer from God,” which in my mind raised a rhetorical question, namely that maybe God has asked him a question and He is the one waiting for an answer. Music has a way of answering questions without words, and the answers are in Menotti’s music. What shines through is Menotti’s faith-longing. Another great composer, Anton Bruckner, said of his magnificent Te Deum: “When God finally calls me and asks ‘What have you done with the talent I gave you, my lad?’ I will present to Him the score of my Te Deum, and I hope He will judge me mercifully.”
REILLY:
During our visit in 2001, I read to Menotti his own words: “I have to face Him [God] one of these days, and we have little discussions, private discussions. . . . I’m trying to get an answer from God.” I suggested to him that “maybe God has asked you a question, and He’s the one waiting for an answer.” Menotti replied, “Yes, I know. He has asked me a few questions. That’s the trouble, that’s the dialogue, because I don’t know what to answer.” The answers are in Menotti’s music, and nowhere is that answer stronger than in the Missa: O Pulchritudo. What shines through is not Menotti’s unbelief but his belief. Anton Bruckner said of his magnificent Te Deum: “When God finally calls me and asks ‘What have you done with the talent I gave you, my lad?’, I will present to Him the score of my Te Deum and I hope He will judge me mercifully.”
GOEGLEIN:
One hopes and prays that Menotti gained a similar reception, though he seems to have had a modest understanding of himself. He once said, “I do not know my own worth - I’m not Bach, but I like to think I’m not Offenbach either!” Very clever, very humbling. Indeed, Offenbach could not have written a Mass like Menotti’s. Beauty wins out in the end; excellence lasts. Why? Because God is beautiful, and he embodies an excellence and radiance pre-eminent that brings a glimpse of the eternal into our temporal lives.
REILLY:
One hopes and prays that Menotti gained a similar reception. Menotti had a modest understanding of himself. In 1998 he said, “I do know my own worth—I’m not Bach, but I like to think I’m not Offenbach either!” Indeed, Offenbach could not have written a Mass like this. It must have been a source of great satisfaction to Menotti at the very end of his long life to know that this recording was finally being released. Beauty wins out in the end—because God is Beauty.
GOEGLEIN:
Menotti once told a friend of mine, “I say, at least in music, that beauty is a search for the inevitable, that great music is music that can only be that way and no other way. And only God can give you the inevitable.” This rings in one’s ears of angel bells, so powerful and lovely is its evocation of the roots of great music.
REILLY:
In his interview for crisis, we spoke of the Catholic Faith, with which he had struggled, and his mission as a composer. He remarked, “I say, at least in music, that beauty is a search for the inevitable, that great music is music that can only be that way and no other way. And only God can give you the inevitable.”
[I suppose we can conclude from reading this last pairing that Goeglein ripped off his *friend*?]
February 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Stanhope - you cheated, just posting the urls!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
That’s three — yer out, buddy. Back to the bench.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I love how this is happening, literally, as we speak (type). I hope you don’t become toooo famous, Nancy, or we’ll have to share you with everyone.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
How lame that the Gazette couldn’t give the url to this blog.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Ha - I beat Grytpype Thynne by ONE MINUTE!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Still more - compare:
http://www.nysun.com/article/56905
with:
http://www.newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070723/EDITORIAL/707230315
February 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
You snooze, you lose, Grytpype! hehe
It really was too easy.
How did you go about it?
I started plugging in names from the article and Googling, adding one name at a time until the Crisis article emerged at the top of the results.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
[...] head of the White House’s Office of Public Liaison Tim Goeglein get’s nailed pretty good for plagiarism. Published on February 29, 2008 in Odds and Ends. Tags: plagerism, TimGoeglein, [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Another tip for looking for plagiarism:
Oftentimes the hardest part of writing an essay or article or even a blog post is the closing. You’ve laid out the facts and you need to summarize it without sounding dumb. When my daughter was in sixth grade she’d end all of her essays with a sentence starting with “All in all…” as in:
“All in all, time and again, the world proves to us that plagiarism doesn’t pay.”
The closing paragraph(s) of a given article are often the ones that have been plagiarized. If you suspect plagiarism, this is a good place to look.
All in all.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I thought the column had been taken down. I guess that means that it is no longer linked to the from the editorial page, not that it has been removed.
http://newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080228/EDITORIAL/802280323
http://newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=EDITORIAL
February 29th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Chemnitz Says:
February 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Just trying to point out that if you don’t like it from Goeglein, I would think you’d hate it from Obama. Clearly, Obama’s speeches in campaigning for president are more significant than an essay for a Fort Wayne newspaper. Wake up to your hypocrisy.
Man, I hurt too much from laughing. Poor little Chemny all in a lather because one of his (lying, dishonest) peeps got utterly outed as a creature of low character.
Chemny, Chemny, Chemny, why don’t you start posting as ‘Sprezzatura’ and someone might care.
Oh, and Ben Domenech called. He needs you to come to his defence.
Love your blog, Nancy!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Yet more - compare:
http://www.tfas.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=1034&srcid=431
with:
http://newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/EDITORIAL/708090323
HAYWARD:
Let’s start with greatness as an abstract idea. How is it defined? Aristotle said that political greatness is the ability to translate wisdom into action on behalf of the public good. In order to do this, Aristotle said, you must have a combination of moral virtue, practical wisdom and public spiritedness.
In simple terms, it is hard enough to know what is good for our own selves, but to be a statesman, you must know what is good for everyone. Aristotle adds that intelligence is not enough; the practical wisdom of a statesman is not something that can be mastered through standardized training.
GOEGLEIN:
The philosopher Aristotle said greatness is the ability to translate wisdom into action on behalf of the public good. In order to do this, you must have a combination of moral virtue, practical wisdom and public spiritedness. In the simplest of terms, it is difficult enough to know what is good for ourselves, but the truly great men and women among us have a deeper sense of what is good for the larger public. Intelligence, Aristotle reminded his charges, is not enough, because practical wisdom is not something that can be mastered through standardized training.
HAYWARD:
If you break it down, there are a few things that a great statesman must possess. First, a great statesman has a central idea. Second, they have a strong element of democratic responsibility. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the greatest of statesmen has an extraordinary independence of mind and of imagination. They are very unconventional thinkers. Often, much of their unconventional thinking comes from being, in certain respects, self-educated.
GOEGLEIN:
I think the truly great men and women have a central idea that motivates their lives. They also have a strong element of what I might call democratic responsibility. They think largely of other people in remarkably free and equal terms regardless of wealth, status, power or education. Perhaps most importantly, the greatest among us have the gift of an extraordinary independence of mind and of imagination. They are unconventional thinkers who see beyond their time to the larger good. This is a rare gift indeed, and it is, in part, what makes true greatness so rare.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
As a former resident of Defiance OH, who looks back fondly and at times w/ horror at that part of the US (and for whom, growing up, Fort Wayne was THE BIG CITY), mad props to you, Nancy for this journalistic coup! This made my day.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
“You snooze, you lose, Grytpype! hehe
It really was too easy.
How did you go about it?”
My technique is to search for quotations, particularly those where Geoglein “once heard so and so say…” or “so and so once said to a friend of mine…”, though this last one I caught throught the Aristotle paraphrase
February 29th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
“You snooze, you lose, Grytpype! hehe”
Also, be nice - I wasn’t snoozing, I was copying and pasting!!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Wow, Your story has been linked by both Atios and TalkingPointsMemo! And God knows who else.
The weird thing about this, it doesn’t sound like he had a regular deadline to hit. He could have just skipped writing that week instead of stealing from others. So this was not a crime of desperation but a crime of arrogence. It must be something in the Bush White House that does that to people.
Remember that guy in the White House who was caught in a complicated shoplifting scheme by abusing a store’s returns policy? He didn’t need the money. It was like, he could do it so he did.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
[...] So writes Nancy Nall. [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I feel bad about what I’m going to do here.
I feel your pain; I just did this.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
[...] GOP, Uber Alles This is, admittedly, just one silly guy getting caught doing something silly. There are more important people out there than the director of the White House office of public [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
[...] So writes Nancy Nall. [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
YES -nail the asshole -
February 29th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
beb: “The weird thing about this, it doesn’t sound like he had a regular deadline to hit.”
which time?
February 29th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hmmm. The NS disclaimer on their editorial page about plagiarism questions has been removed. It was up for what?, maybe 2 hours?
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080229/EDITORIAL/987174482
http://newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=EDITORIAL
February 29th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hello. I’m a retired professor, progressive and sometime plagiarism sleuth. Im stumped at this time by a passage I’m sure is plagiarized. I’ve run distinctive parts through concatenation in Google, and FYI, free palgiarism checkers on the internet listed in http://www.copywighting911.com/check-your-content/ I’d appreciate learning by e-mail if you have any other means of detection. Thanks
February 29th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Wow! What a metaphor for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the entire “conservative” movement, too!
At least William F. Buckley actually wrote his own sonorous, sesquipedalian hogwash.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’m losing track — are we up to seven columns, or six?
And you gotta think, well, if six or seven, then probably . . . well, wonder if any of his college profs are thumbing through their big grey file cabinets right now. I’d give a nickle to see the resume he submitted to Karl (ha, Karl just called and said “I’m gonna change yer life, boy” and never looked at his resume — you bet?), which will doubtless have the most creative writing the fellow’s ever done, apparently.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Maybe if you blogged out of a Starbucks, the N-S wouldn’t have been so condescending.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
@ Kevin Shay: And I felt awful doing this.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Let me come up with an original sentiment here: I’m shocked, shocked! to discover that a White House aide is a thief.
BTW, this editing tool is the cat’s pajamas!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
To steal someone’s ideas absent attribution is, of course, intellectual dishonesty of the basest order. To not even bother to rewrite those ideas in one’s own words is laziness at which a sloth would scoff. To ignore the probability that one might get caught displays the cerebral activity of the dead.
The above commenter who suggested that Mr. Obama’s use of another’s words - words which, as rightly noted, had been previously acknowledged as another’s - somehow constitutes equivalence inhabits the circle of uninformed and/or mendacious swine unfortunately far too large for the preservation of an enlightened republic.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Mad Librarian,
You are aware that from time to time, good liberals have copied the work of others, are you not? Heard of Dorris Kearns Goodwin, perhaps?
Plagiarism by a single doofus only tells us something about the character of the person who did it, not any groups to which he belongs. It makes no more sense to attribute his plagiarism to his political beliefs than it does to attribute his acts to a Lutheran upbringing or, for that matter, his Indiana roots.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Just to bend your brain a bit further on this subject — apparently L. Ron Hubbard plagiarized “Scientology” from, er “Scientologie” auf Deutsch –
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4829
February 29th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I’m late to this, but, wow, nice catch.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
David Mastio:
“You are aware that from time to time, good liberals have copied others work, are you not? ”
Just so long as you don’t call Joe Biden a “good liberal.”
February 29th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
More google tidbits: Turns out that we, as taxpayers, are funding Goeglein to the tune of $125,000 a year:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/graphics/2007stafflistsalary.html
February 29th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
swiped from Rob commenting at Atrios:
Goeglein is paid $125K annually by…um…you and me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/graphics/2007stafflistsalary.html
February 29th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
lol - and this time Rob beat me to accrediting…Rob.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@David Mastio - DKG is a liberal? Who knew. And the point is that “conservatives” and religious nutjobs far more satisfying targets. David Vitter steps to the Senate floor fresh from banging a hooker to tell me that marriage is the most important institution EVAR. Ted Haggard says gays are bad then runs off to schtup (sp?) a male escort. And this clown handles religious affairs for a moral scold who’s responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. Pardon my delight in their destruction.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Cheers, Nancy! Splendidly done.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Here’s another one:
When “The Big Trail” failed at the box office, Wayne spent the better part of a decade playing cowboys of the nuance-free variety in cheap B-Westerns. What came next, though, was a revolution in his life and in the life of American film. It took the director John Ford to finely etch Wayne’s cowboy persona with scratches and cracks, allowing to emerge a tantalizing glimpse of the angry, hurt and unloved actor within. Ford and Wayne, one of the most famous director/actor teams in all of Hollywood history, was born, and they made not only more than two dozen films together but also Hollywood movie history.
http://www.newssentinel.com/apps…ORIAL/ 707230315
When “The Big Trail” failed at the box office, Wayne spent the better part of a decade playing cowboys of the nuance-free variety in cheap B-Westerns. It took director John Ford to finely etch Wayne’s cowboy persona with scratches and cracks that allowed tantalizing glimpses of the angry, hurt, and unloved “Marion” within. Appropriately, the bulk of the MoMA retrospective is drawn from the nearly two-dozen films that Ford and Wayne made together.
http://www.nysun.com/article/56905
And that’s not all, pretty much the whole Goeglein piece is a hash of the Bruce Bennett piece.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
[...] cream as a kind of anti-aging agent but that it has given her chest hair … to which White House-plagiarism-exposing ex-journo and all-around cool blogger Nancy Nall says, “I’m sure that goes really well with [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’m guessing that the Goegler plays golf for $100 a hole and kicks his ball out of the rough when the other guys aren’t looking.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
earthandstaples: see 12:11pm (I was lazy)
February 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
[...] Nall googled the name, only to find that full sections of Goeglein’s 16-paragraph essay were copied nearly word-for-word from a 10-year old Dartmouth Review essay by Jeffrey Hart. Confronted about the plagiarism, [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Mastio,
What blogenfreude and Grytpype Thynne said.
I would never deny that liberals could be guilty of the same offense (obviously!). But your example is kind of weird (Doris Kearns Goodwin is a member of the beltway Kewl Kidz in good standing, IMO, and not what I’d call a liberal, merely a token [not-obviously-a-barking-mad-wingnut-so-'liberal'-by-default], in other words).
The point I was trying to make is that hypocrisy, intellectual bankruptcy, and moral depravity are the defining characteristics of Movement Wingnuttism, not merely occasional lapses. It’s a feature, not a bug! A few countervailing examples (even if more apt than yours) do not disprove this observation.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Nance, you probably already know this, but us regulars are very proud of you.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Kind of cool to be in on an Internet Sensation, huh, Danny?
February 29th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
If being an aide to LBJ doesn’t qualify you for admission to “The Liberal Club,” i can’t imagine what the password is. The point being not about Kearns Goodwin, but that this is an equal opportunity problem, one that survives in people counting on the rest of us to be too lazy to bird-dog their thefts deep into the swamps. (Except the internet has filled the swamp with GPS and trail signage that wasn’t there ten years ago.)
And their assumptions about our lassitude and indifference usually hold true, making moments like this worth jumping on headlong, feet-first. Don’t EVEN get me started on clergy and sermons . . .
February 29th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Danny took the words right out of my mouth. But that’s not plagiarism, I swear.
Love you lots today Nancy!!
February 29th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
It’s interesting to me, too, how in nearly every instance the small emendations Goeglein makes (why did he bother, I wonder?) end up making the text less interesting and eloquent.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Nancy, you are my hero. The end.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Oh my Nancy, you are everywhere. You are almost having an instalanche!
February 29th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I believe there’s another. Mr. Goeglein published an op-ed in the News Sentinel called, “Remember Puritan Roots of Liberty.” Oddly, the link to the editorial is no longer working (http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12034470.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp). Perhaps the paper has pulled it.
However, the editorial is quoted at length in a blog called Brilliant Mediocrity (http://www.brilliantmediocrity.com/archives/70-Musings-on-a-Puritan-America.html). Here’s one of the paragraphs the author quotes from Goeglein:
“We remain the country of John Winthrop and Ralph Waldo Emerson, a cumulative portrait of faith and reason, but not faith without reason or reason without faith. America is the place where we begin anew and an arena in which each individual should ennoble and serve the whole.”
And here’s a brief paragraph from a National Review book review written by Michael Potemra (http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=NTFkM2NlMTdkOWQzM2FmYmY2NGE5NmE2ZDU4ZDk4OTI=):
“We have been, and remain, the country of John Winthrop and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The author succeeds in creating what he calls a ‘cumulative portrait of America as a place to begin anew, [and] an arena in which each individual should ennoble and serve the whole.’”
Note the internal quotation marks. TG lifts from both the reviewer and the author of the work being reviewed. How efficient.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Very cool, Kirk and Dorothy.
And I really like how you put that, Jeff. I was going to say something along the lines of:
The point I was trying to make is that hypocrisy, intellectual bankruptcy, and moral depravity are the defining characteristics of Movement Wingnuttism, not merely occasional lapses.
There certainly are a lot of phonies in the conservative ranks. But Mad Librarian and you other johnny-come-todays, you should take a deep breath, get a grip on yourselves. And reality. That is all.
I’m a helper. Jeff is nicer and smarter though.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Here are those links again:
The sentinel piece, which has been pulled.
Brilliant Mediocrity blog.
The National Review book review.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I got a weird one, and it cost me 6 bucks. He wrote a little screed for Poetry magazine and ripped off a novelist guest writing at the WSJ.
“But as one can legitimately see design in the chaos of evolution and recognize providence behind the mask of history, so God undeniably may be known to live in the experience of being human.”
Andew Klavan, WSJ Online, 12/24/2004
http://opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006071
“that one can legitimately see design in the chaos, and recognize and know personally Providence behind the mask of history; best, that God may undeniably be known to live in the experience of being human.”
Goglein, A Sense of the Sacred, Poetry Magazine, April 1, 2005
February 29th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Grytpype Thynne deserves all the credit for the NYSun/Bennett catch!
(Sorry, I missed your link and got all excited when I Goegleined the Bennett piece. Hey, everyone wants to play now.)
February 29th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Oh my, they keep on coming. I wonder what rock he’s crawling under even as we ’speak’.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Jeff,
See my response to David Mastio, above. Sure, it’s an “equal opportunity” problem. But I was remarking on how it seems endemic to the party of G.W. Bush, not an occasional contained outbreak. Think Ben Dommenech, think Jeff Gannon, etc., etc., ad ininitum, ad nauseam. And gay-bashing closet cases, militaristic draft-dodgers, Constitution-shredding “freedom-spreaders”, murdering right-to-lifers, welfare-hating Scaife Foundation lampreys, undsoweiter… You name it, there’s a hypocrite doing it in the modern Republican Party.
As for Goodwin, that was a long damn time ago, and these days she chiefly serves as a Colmesesque foil for the reactionary loons, so they can say, “even ‘libruls’ like Doris Kearns Goodwin think we should nuke Tehran…”, as well as providing irrelevant cutesy anecdotes about what was in Richard Nixon’s sock drawer. So give me a fucking break about her “liberalism”.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
There certainly are a lot of phonies in the conservative ranks. But Mad Librarian and you other johnny-come-todays, you should take a deep breath, get a grip on yourselves. And reality. That is all.
I didn’t know you had to be a regular to have a right to express an opinion here. I just discovered this site through Atrios today. I’ll desist now, so you won’t get your prissy panties in a wad, Danny Boy.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
What I love about this is that he was ripping off his “friends” on the Right:
The Dartmouth Review
The New York Sun
The National Review
Crisis
He doesn’t even go out of his comfort zone to plagiarize!
February 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
There certainly are a lot of phonies in the conservative ranks. But Mad Librarian and you other johnny-come-todays, you should take a deep breath, get a grip on yourselves. And reality. That is all.
I didn’t know you had to be a regular to have a right to express an opinion here. I just discovered this site through Atrios today. I’ll desist now, so you won’t get your prissy panties in a wad, Danny Boy.
===
He’ll get over it. The water’s just a bit choppy in his pond today.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
WaPo picks up the story»
February 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Danny Boy: “‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.”
OK - I admit I stole that one. And you, of course, will know from where.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
[...] in point — Timothy S. Goeglein, a treacly columnist for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, was accused of plagiarism by a blogger in an email to his paper last night, exposed publicly by the blogger this morning, further [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
“WaPo picks up the story»”
NOW you’re famous, Nancy!
February 29th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Congratulations, Nancy. Well caught, well written.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Wow. “Panties in a wad” and whatever else you all want to say. I’m wounded. But please be gentle because if you hurt my last feeling, I will be invincible.
Listen, my point is not that I am upset about things being active and chippy on the blog today. To the contrary. I am very happy about that. And I don’t think any of the people who contribute here regularly feel any sense of rank or entitlement. It’s just that if you are new here and unfamiliar, you should know that you won’t get a pass if you make assinine comments. That’s just the way we roll here. Reality. Dig it.
And we all usually get along. Don’t hate me because I’m right.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
“The point that we are to respond both to creation and to God not after the manner of need but of true delight is a delicate one. It is bound up with the very idea that God is complete in Himself,”
James V. Schall, S. J.
Professor
Department of Government, Georgetown
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/schallj/8.htm
(date too hard to figure out)
” we are to respond both to creation and to God not after the manner of need but of true delight. It is bound up with the idea that God is complete in Himself. ”
Goglein, A Sense of the Sacred, Poetry Magazine, April 1, 2005
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Good catch, Nance. Or should we refer to you as “Scoop Derringer” now?
February 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Mad Librarian - careful, or Danny Boy will kick you in your London Derriere.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Stanhope, Grytpype–
See if you can find the provenance of this, his eulogy to William F. Buckley in the National Review:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGQxYzFjODY5Zjc4MTFhNmI3MjJjY2YyNDE0NTA4OTE=
I’m at work and don’t have the time to fuck with it. Keep up the good work! Lovin’ it!
February 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Good job, Nance. Or should we call you “Scoop Derringer” now?
Ha! Good one, wade. How about the “All-Knowing Nall?”
February 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
And you made it into the Washington Post today, Nancy!! Congrats!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
February 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Nancy Nall: defender of truth, justice and the American way.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
My My,
“Timothy S. Goeglein, former Fort Wayne resident and now a special assistant to President George Bush, has been accused of plagiarism over a guest column about education The News-Sentinel published on our editorial page on Thursday.”
Or
Tim Goeglein, an assistant to the President and deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison
February 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I still like Madam Telling Tales (which she invented for a column or two, back in her old-media days, approximately a lifetime ago!)
or simply The Proprietress - which has a fuller, deeper meaning, given her scoop today
February 29th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Oh lord, the NRO piece looks dubious too …
http://www.google.com/search?q=Friendship%2C+at+its+best%2C+is+a+foretaste+of+heaven.+I&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
February 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Sorry alex - I’m out of time myself. David Mastio, maybe we should all save ourselves some time and try to come up with a list of articles which this knucklehead DIDN’T plagiarize.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
…you should know that you won’t get a pass if you make assinine [sic]comments…
If I do make any, I should expect no less. But what is ‘asinine’ about pointing out the truth about the Cons? You just told me to, in effect “STFU, Newbie”, you didn’t refute my point or provide any evidence that “liberals do it, too” (and are therefore just as bad as the bastards who are fucking up our country, presumably).
February 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Whose red woolen union suit is in a twist? We’re not flinging the f-bombs to make a simple point.
OK, fine — plagiarism is a unique problem endemic to the shallower waters of the conservative movement gene pool. Please note the lengthy roster of self-declared conservatives happy to say immediately and without qualification: he’s an idiot, an amoral wretch, and cast out he shall be from the West Wing and the cash bar of the next C-PAC event. You watch, he’s blown chunks across the WaPo (nice, nice work Nancy, from a purely journo perspective — get any into the WaPo when you were writing for ink and not pixels?). That gets you the door, pure and simple [cue wails about Rove's many unindicted crimes].
I’m a mildly conservative clergy-person in highly liberal circles, denomination-wise, and i’d never say that liberals have cornered the market in unattributed verbatim rip-offs of sermons (including phrases like “my friend said” and “a woman i met on the sidewalk downtown” without cavil), but it is most assuredly an equal opportunity disease among preachers, which i could cite you up on the left ad nauseum. Conservatives just get shot, perhaps justifiably, by their wives (or get found in odd rubber suits, i hear).
Smite them all, hip and thigh, i say. (That last strophe on smiting was borrowed; i’ll let you Google for fun.)
February 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Danny - I actually think one ought to be a bit more reserved on entering a room full of strangers than when entering a room full of friends, so even if you were defending “regulars” I wouldn’t take it particularly amiss (as a “newbie” moonlighting from Atrios myself), so I should clarify that my last couple of posts directed at you were really just excuses to make references to Danny Boy and Londonderry Air.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
So who has called for interviews, Nance? NPR? ABC? CNN? Surely not Fox.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Don’t feel bad, Mad Lib. Danny takes swipes at me too. Regularly.
He’s actually a pretty decent dude regardless of his leanings. He just fights like a conservative, that’s all.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Wade and Danny, did you see the Nancy Drew reference (virgotext, 10:54 a.m.)? Click on it and you will even see the cover artwork for, if I remember correctly, The Mystery of the Hidden (Lost?) Staircase. I am basking, just basking in Nancy’s reflected journalistic AND bad-child-lit glory. Also, the posters who are having a little trouble with attitudes on this site? Danny’s right. We’re like a bunch of bar friends at the beginning of the evening, and I think we’re careful to keep it that way. Let’s not turn it into a closing-time bar fight. This is the only blog I have ever encountered that doesn’t degenerate like that. (Takes another hit on her margarita, starts to cry.) …I mean, I love you guys, yaknow?
February 29th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
So who has called for interviews, Nance?
So far? The News-Sentinel. I expect that’ll change if Tim resigns, but for now, the White House is merely “disappointed” in him (according to the AP).
Actually, my head is whirling right now. I need to write something about the whole experience, but it’ll take a day or two to figure out what.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Hey, Nance — the plagiarism story just hit Drudge. Alas, no mention of the sleuth who uncovered it.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
“Foretaste of heaven” is more along the lines of a commonplace, I would think, David.
As for the rest . . .
It’s thievery, pure and simple. There’s no fine distinction to make about it , no enlightening discussion about the nature of plagiarism vs. the nature of echoing and allusion for it to prompt, no fantastic opportunity to consider the art of oratory vs. the art of written rhetoric. It’s just stealing.
And it’s sad, unspeakably sad. I don’t really care about this guy’s political leanings. I just come at this sort of thing as a writer. The whole fun of writing comes in shaping an idea, exploring it, seeing where it leads, finding exactly the shades of meaning that you’re after, uttering something new, or zeroing in on something so common that it’s usually invisible, and finding a pointed, poetic, or otherwise memorable way to make it seen anew. It’s so wonderful to get lost in the writing, and then to tinker with the flow and diction and music of it. What fun to go zig zagging around in the warren of etymologies, or to discover where research might lead, or to select just the right bits to quote, paraphrase, and (for gosh sakes) cite and document so that others might follow your trail, see it entirely differently than you did, blaze new ones.
Such a joy to be a writer. Such a gift. A privilege, even.
It’s a major bummer that there are so many writers who apparently don’t get that at all.
Big sigh.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
…and it was chocolate milk, not coffee, for Terry & Templeton that day. You can’t sling stuff like that past Gus…or nancy.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Now this is just funny:
Wonkette»
February 29th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I’m so wound up you’d think that I was the one who did the scooping! It’s so exciting to be on the sidelines for this. And even more exciting to wonder what comes next.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Alex/Sue. You guys crack me up. Sue, the Drew reference was great. I was more of a Three Investigators reader, myself.
Nancy, let me help your writer’s block. Always try to begin with, “It was a dark, stormy night…”
Barring that, a lot of positive references to me: something like “intelligent muse” or “wind beneath wings,” but nothing toooo sappy, would do.
Mad Librarian, I saw no reason to have to “refute” or “provide evidence” about something so obvious. I mean, if a statement is made that plagarism and/or scandalous behavior is confined to and/or the defining characteristic of the conservative movement, it seems obvious that it is hyperbole. Without irony or humor.
Grytpype Thynne, no problem
February 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Hey, you’ve made the Drudge Report as well!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Jeff,
Being new here, I am unaware of the customary levels of decorum. I’m used to inhabiting the rougher purlieus of left blogistan, where “f-bombs” are flung with aplomb and wild abandon. I can make an argument without resorting to them, though. If I decide to become a regular here, I will certainly try to adapt my usage to the appropriate level.
OK, fine — plagiarism is a unique problem endemic to the shallower waters of the conservative movement gene pool.
I. Never. Said. That. Never said it was unique.
Please read what I actually wrote, instead of the straw argument that you think I wrote. Why do you and Danny keep misrepresenting what I said. Am I speaking Choctaw? Is it written in Devanagari?
Your politics prevent you from seeing it, I guess, but there is something very wrong, systemically wrong, irredemably sick and perverted and broken, with the modern Conservative Movement as incarnated in the present Republican party and exemplified by George W. Bush, the rotten head of the whole putrid fish. That is what I am saying. However, your mileage may vary, of course.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
…plagarism and/or scandalous behavior is confined to and/or the defining characteristic of the conservative movement…
Never. Said. That.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Kafkaz, you sound like Joe Rogan bemoaning the plagiarist that is Carlos Mencia (nee Ned somethingorother), and I agree with both of you.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
“Hey, Nance — the plagiarism story just hit Drudge. Alas, no mention of the sleuth who uncovered it.”
Hey - this plagiarism thing is really catching on!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“Never. Said. That.”
The straw Mad did, Mad.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Actually, my head is whirling right now
This experience must be an exquisite cocktail (to continue the early ‘friends at a bar’ analogy, for this place); when you made the discovery, and KNEW you had something here - excitement! The genuine ‘juice’ of being a journalist…and then publishing it, and watching the story blaze across the internet and into the national news….and then - what?
The fellow - who is getting what he deserves, by the way - will always have the word ‘plagiarism’ associated with his name; certainly his $2000/week paycheck is gone, and getting another gig like that ain’t in the cards. And - sure, it’s not Ms Nall’s fault (at all), but it does temper the giddiness, a bit.
The best line in Clint Eastwood’s movie Unforgiven is when the kiddo is asking for reassurance from Clint, that the guys they just shot and killed “had it comin’” - and Clint says something like “We’ve all got it comin’, kid”
A story like this gives one pause.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I was totally going to call him on this but I’ve been so busy on my turn-of-the-century whaling adventure, Moby Steve, that I never got to it.
So, good for you Nancy.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Brilliant reporting, Nancy and all the rest of you. I’m very impressed.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Mad Lib, I do agree that the conservative movement is sick. Just not irredemably so. As long as there are a few of us who are just as ardent and enthusiastic for the outing of the phonies within our own ranks, it’ll probably be okay.
As for my politics preventing me from seeing a truth. I dunno. I try to be realistic. I couldn’t have been happier when they finally caught my congressman taking bribes and he got his 8 year prison term. Slimeball, he was. And any of us here who identify as conservatives are pretty happy about Goeglein’s (eventual) demise.
Nance, wow, I was wondering if you were going to get mentioned on Drudge. Big time!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Not exactly mooorree… but although he didn’t plagiarize the column you refer to above as “Odes to Summer”, he did cadge every single quote in it from a Dartmouth Review quote page:
http://dartreview.com/archives/2007/08/05/the_last_word.php
It’s the easy way to appear like you do a lot of reading.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
This is good news!!! For Hillary!!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Just a personal thing about the, whatever, piling on. I’m a writer. It’s HARD WORK–the caps thing alone is tough enough. I’ve written lots of bad stuff, some good stuff and a whole lot in between, but I’ve never been tempted to rip anyone off.
The guy has committed a writing offense, nothing more, nothing less. As much as some of us would like it to be more, or some of us less, that’s really all it is.
But it’s the worst writing offense, and deserving of censure and shame. AND a bright, white spotlight.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hah! I had to go find that reference, Grytpype–now *there’s* some talented f-bomb dropping.
It offends (or maybe “wounds” is the better word, there) my inner writer, that’s all.
High dudgeon with more than tinge of mournfulness.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Brian, that line from Unforgiven is absolutely the best.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nancy I hope you get an invite to The Daily Show.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Great work, Nance. Salon also has it now:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/
February 29th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Oh my God! The Daily Show! That would be so fabulous! Which one(s) of your loyal readers are you going to casually mention? Have I told you lately how very much I admire you?
February 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Running list of references…long and getting longer»
February 29th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Nance, the article linked to at Drudge does have attribution:
Goeglein’s action was brought to light in a posting by a blogger, Nancy Nall.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Mad Lib, I do agree that the conservative movement is sick. Just not irredemably so. As long as there are a few of us who are just as ardent and enthusiastic for the outing of the phonies within our own ranks, it’ll probably be okay.
‘Tis damn glad to hear it, I am. And may your tribe increase! If there were more like you (and intellectually honest recovering conservatives like John Cole), we’d be a lot better off.
Now I think I’d better go and do some actual “work” at my “job”.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
WP Denver - great link! They might fix it, but the OPENING paragraph at Salon is
Friday morning, Timothy Goeglein, a special assistant to President Bush and deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, admitted that he plagiarized a lengthy portion of a recent column he wrote for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
hahahahahahahahaha!!!
The News-Sentinel might say “Nall? Never heard of her” - and then karma (or Salon!) lists their arch-rival as the agrieved party!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Who’s up for a trip to be in the audience when Madam Telling Tales sits in the visitor’s chair on The Daily Show?? Should we all get matching tee shirts that “We Knew Nancy Before She Was Scoop”??
February 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Someone already cited the piece by Goeglein titled “Remember Puritan Roots of Liberty,” which appears to have been taken down by the News Sentinel. But in a blog critique of that piece published in July, 2005, Goeglein is quoted as having written, “Pope John Paul II, a great friend of America and himself a great advocate for human freedom, required only a decade to demonstrate how much more powerful is faith in God than the banalities of dialectical materialism. This is not unrelated to our own national sense of personal freedom and dignity. Preponderantly, the forces of freedom favor the devout rather than a bright idyll of rational humanism. Secularism creates a culture of almost mystical triviality.”
I took that last unique phrase–”culture of almost mystical triviality”– and Googled it and found a blog which discusses the contents of the June, 2005 (one month earlier) issue of The New Criterion. In his review of that issue, Thomas C. Reeves writes, “David B. Hart, one of the great religious thinkers of our day, reviews a book on the rise and fall of atheism in the West. Hart comments, “…rather than a bright idyll of rational humanism, secularism creates a culture of almost mystical triviality…”
The link for the first site is:
http://www.brilliantmediocrity.com/?serendipity%5Baction%5D=search&serendipity%5BsearchTerm%5D=strappado
The link for the second site is:
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/13489.html
Since I can’t find the original News Sentinel column I can only rely on the truthfulness of that blog critique of it by “Chris” at http://www.brilliantmediocrity.com
Perhaps someone with better Googling skills can help me out. Or perhaps the News Sentinel can look in their own archives.
Best,
Matt Mendelsohn
February 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
to nancy and everyone else,
wonkette has cited nancy’s take down of goeglin. since i don’t know how to do html, just go to wonkette.com and go from there.
great snark from wonkette, iirc:
so goeglein’s been googled?”
February 29th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I’ll bet she could hold her own against Stephen Colbert, too.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Not every newspaper is as concerned over plagiarism as it should be. The Charlotte Sun (Port Charlotte, Fla.) has built a small family empire out of the practice — and I have constructed a blog devoted almost entirely to pointing out this out. The Sun needs a new writer’s title: Staff Plagiarist.
Why do it? Because it’s cheap and easy to get novices and the unscrupulous to write (not that Goeglein is a novice); it’s easier to ignore than check; and in the end, there’s no penalty for plagiarism unless a source or the newspaper chooses to retaliate — rare events both. In fact, it’s easier for the newspaper to ignore the infraction that go through the public embarrassment of vetting old columns, firing the creep, and making a public apology — at least that’s the de facto policy at the Charlotte Sun-Herald.
http://www.oldwordwolf.blogspot.com
February 29th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
From Editor&Publisher (via CNET blogs):
“The problem is: More examples have now been identified at The Washington Post and New York Sun, with further searches (including at the News-Sentinel) just starting. As recently as Wednesday, Goeglein wrote a tribute to the late William F. Buckley for the National Review site.”
February 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Hey, Nance, you finally got attribution in the News-Sentinel. By way of the AP, but anyhoo…
http://fortwayne.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/SE/20080229/NEWS/802290345
February 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
kafkaz … re: “foretaste of heaven” — that’s why I wrote “dubious” — when you add “friendship is a foretaste of heaven” it becomes a little more dubious. And its the first line of his piece on WFB. With all that has been exposed here today, I didn’t think it worth the effort to research beyond the first line, adding it to the pile for others more enthusiastic for the chase.
Regardless, if anyone on the planet deserved something better that a