Plagiarizin’ Pols

As we learned earlier this week, Sarah Palin likes to make up words; other politicians, it would seem, are less creatively inclined when it comes to their writing. Last week, the Denver Post revealed two instances in which Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, a Republican, had borrowed liberally—and without attribution—from other sources.

During a two-year fellowship with the Hasan Family Foundation, McInnis presented a series of essays called “Musings on Water.” Despite its contemplative-sounding title, the series was actually a wonky, esoteric discussion of local water rights in Colorado. The articles were a requirement of McInnis’s lucrative fellowship with the foundation: he was paid three hundred thousand dollars for writing a total of one hundred and fifty pages on the subject. Only it turns out that large portions of the series were lifted directly from a 1984 essay by Gregory J. Hobbs, now a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court. After the first allegation, the Post uncovered another incident in which McInnis had lifted passages from a Washington Post op-ed for a column in the Rocky Mountain News, and in a speech on the House floor.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com