Monday, August 11, 2008

McCain speech plagiarized Wikipedia

Is 'plagiarism' too strong of a word for something like this?

I mean, everyone knows damn well that if Obama had been caught doing the same thing, his campaign would be over.

Much of a speech McCain delivered about the crisis in the Republic of Georgia was copied from the Wikipedia article about that country - much of it almost word-for-word.

Fer instance...

Wikipedia said that Georgia is "one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

McCain said that it's "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

Wikipedia said, "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."

Wikipedia is free to use, but its terms of use do require proper attribution.

McCain hires speechwriters who are so lazy that they just copy Wikipedia?

Maybe when McAin't gives a speech about bubble gum and calls it "bubble poo", people will take notice that he's just ripping off Wikipedia.

This proves that if McCain gets elected, he's going to surround himself with intellectually lazy clods who just rip off other people's work.

(Source: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/politicalinsider/2008/08/did-mccain-plagarize-his-speec.html)

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