July 9, 2006
IS THAT REALLY THE BEST THEY'VE GOT ON HER?:
Coulter copying charge probed (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 8, 2006)
In "Godless," Coulter writes: "The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct." An article that ran in 1999 in Maine's Portland-Press Herald contains the following passage: "The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River, is halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant believed to be extinct." In a newspaper column that ran in 2005, Coulter wrote of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter: "As New Hampshire attorney general in 1977, Souter opposed the repeal of an 1848 state law that made abortion a crime even though Roe v. Wade had made it irrelevant, predicting that if the law were repealed, New Hampshire 'would become the abortion mill of the United States.'" A Los Angeles Times article from 1990 noted: "In 1977, Souter as state attorney general spoke out against a proposed repeal of an 1848 state law that made abortion a crime - even though the measure had been largely invalidated by the Supreme Court in Roe. vs. Wade."
Can't they at least find a case where she did more than borrow facts? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 9, 2006 1:26 PM
I guess not.....
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at July 9, 2006 1:44 PMYou mean someone actually scoured her book (or books and articles) to come up with these, yet couldn't find a single case of two consecutive sentences that could meet this broad standard of "plagarism"? This is the best they can do? Next they'll accuse her of making jokes about things found on a Coke can.
Does anyone actually think that all that effort would have been made if so many Leftists hadn't already been caught lifting whole paragraphs to chapters, or just making up their facts as needed? When hypocrisy is a mortal sin, it's so much easier to accuse your critics of being no better than you are than it is to clean up your own act. This would be pathetic if it weren't part of the Left's long-standing agenda of criminalizing and marginalizing any criticism.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 9, 2006 2:02 PM... borrow facts -- formerly known as research.
Posted by: erp at July 9, 2006 3:12 PMWhat's really sad is the critics on the left think if they get Ann Coulter, it will actually silence and/or intimidate the substantial critics of them on the right, without realizing that Ann is more of a "cut and paste" type. She makes her money spinning red meat phrases to like-minded believers based on certain information, but engages in little, if any original research (and if you eliminated all the political authors who commit similar sins, the bookshleves would be a lot emptier at Barnes & Noble and Borders).
Posted by: John at July 9, 2006 10:48 PMThe dam quote may be damning but the Souter one is is not in any way identical, it's not even close.
In the world of intellectual property, the "borrowing" of facts--someone else's research--is known as plagiarism.
Besides, the plagiarism charges are only to give her a battle in the legal system. Ann Coulter doesn't play fair, so no one's going to treat her as if she does.
Posted by: David Walker at August 7, 2006 6:28 PMThen why complain about her?
Posted by: oj at August 7, 2006 6:37 PM