Why Are We Back In Iraq?

UPDATE: News agencies respond

This is repulsive.

A blogger uses dead babies to "prove" his point.

And what exactly is his point? That the same rescuer is shown in various photographs at the same place at the same time and then is shown in a nearby town a day or so later?

As for the 1996 photo purportedly of the same man, while they may have some similiar features the age difference looks to me like it's more than ten years.

"Who is this man?" asks this conspiracy theorist blogger that likes to use dead babies to "prove" his points and refers to one dead baby as an "atrocity" with quotes?

Perhaps it's Naim Raka, the civil defense chief for Qana, who is interviewed in this article where it says that the 50-year-old man pulled out three dead children from the rubble.

Whatever.

I feel sleazy enough looking through a bunch of photos of men carrying dead babies in order to show that some bloggers will stoop to anything to prove their preconceived conspiratorial notions.

And this dead baby exploiter who's getting links from many right leaning blogs has another post with more photos of the same man which "proves" that all the media photographers helped the rescue workers stage photos in order to bring about a "cease fire" and make Israel (and their Bush administration supporters) look bad.

Qana is already a likely lie to those who prefer it to be one.

Update

From an article Tuesday at Haaretz:

As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident.

It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time.

The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday.

The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike.

And here's some stuff for the preconceivers in the same article:

The IAF admits the village was struck three times between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Two bombs were dropped on the building in the first strike. Channel 10, however, said on Monday that the initial investigation shows the bombs did not immediately explode, and an explosion in the early morning caused the casualties.

The IDF provided no explanation for the second explosion, and it is not clear whether the bomb was moved, or whether Hezbollah ammunition stored in the building caused the explosion.

UPDATE

Associated Press reports that three news agencies deny "staging" allegations:

Three international news agencies rejected challenges Tuesday to the veracity of photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli air strike in Lebanon, strongly denying the images were staged.

Photographers from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse all covered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed. Many of their photos depicted rescue workers carrying dead children.

A British website, the EU Referendum blog, argued chicanery may have been involved by citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs.

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh talked up the blog on Monday.

The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged and the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including websites using such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken. An AFP executive said he was stunned to be questioned about it. Reuters, in a statement, said it categorically rejects any such suggestion.

....

"Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?" asked Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP.

"I'm totally stunned by first the question and I can't imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened."

It's irritating how the right seem to be able to get ridiculous stories like that into the press so quickly, while plenty of real reporting on liberal blogs never goes anywhere.

And I'm not gonna blog anymore about the reason why the way things are the way they are on the left because no one ever listens. But look what's been going on in the world the last few weeks and look at what the majority of the focus has been on at the approved media worthy sites...that's all I'm saying about that.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/31/2006 09:55:00 PM

David Abel reporting for the Boston Globe:

Governor Mitt Romney yesterday apologized for using the expression "tar baby" -- a phrase some consider a racial epithet -- among comments he made at a political gathering in Iowa over the weekend.

"The governor was describing a sticky situation," said Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's spokesman. "He was unaware that some people find the term objectionable, and he's sorry if anyone was offended."

....

The expression "tar baby" has had different meanings over the years.

A definition from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary traces the expression to the tar baby that trapped Br'er Rabbit in an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris, which became popular in the 19th century. The dictionary now defines the expression as "something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself."

But it also has been used as a pejorative term for dark-skinned blacks.

In his first press conference White House spokesman Tony Snow also used "tar baby" then later employed the Uncle Remus defense while being interviewed on the Hugh Hewitt show:

Well, apparently, what's happened is, apparently some people are unfamiliary with the pathways of American culture, and don't realize the old Uncle Remus story where somebody hugs a tar baby.

There are no "different meanings."

The sticky thing that Brer Rabbit gets attached to - the "tar baby" - is a lump of tar with clothing on it that Brer Bear and Brer Fox disguised to look like a baby.

But what color is tar? Or what particular kind of a baby is a "tar baby"?

A black baby.

A "tar baby" is a black baby.

No one ever mentions this. You can't even read about that at Wikipedia.

It always was and it always will be a racialized expression.

If Tony Snow called a lawyer a "shylock" would he employ the Shakespeare Defense and talk about folks' unfamiliary with the pathways of American culture?

Perhaps some old-school Republicans need to wash their mouths out with soap.

Hat tip to commenters on this Crooks & Liars Haloscan thread for the link to the "Black Americana Tar Baby" soap sold at eBay and this clip from Disney's "Song of the South" which hasn't been re-released theatrically in twenty years.

It's never come out on DVD or on video in the US, though there's never been an official Disney explanation why.

There's even an online campaign devoted to convincing Mickey Mouse's owners to re-release it, which claims that over 109,000 people have signed a petition.

Here's what the NAACP had to say about the film upon its release as reported in this New York Times film review from November 28, 1946:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People expressed regret yesterday over Walt Disney's new production, "Song of the South," on the ground that it is helping to perpetuate the impression of "an idyllic master-slave relationship" in the South.

Walter White, executive secretary, in telegrams to newspapers, stated the association recognized the artistic merit of the picture, but added, "It regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the North or South, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, 'Song of the South' unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts."

That said, I'm definitely in favor of releasing the film. As I would be for "The Turner Diaries" or "Birth of a Nation" or Ann Coulter's "Godless."

I'm just not in favor of old white men in power using racially insensitive terms and pretending that they had no idea of the connotations.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/31/2006 12:18:00 PM

According to Lee Salem, president and editor of Univeral Press Syndicate, star columnist Ann Coulter knows when to give credit to her sources.

"Universal Press Syndicate is confident in the ability of Ms. Coulter, an attorney and frequent media target, to know when to make attribution and when not to," Salem said in a statement received by Editor & Publisher nearly three weeks ago.

But does knowing "when to make attribution" mean that if you crib nine different lines from a source that doesn't mind, then the citation is the author's judgment call?

Apparently so.

A little over a week ago, journalist Cliff Kincaid spoke to a conservative-cribbed-from-by-Coulter (one of many in the C.C.F.B.C. club) who doesn't mind being dissed by his richer and more famous comrade-in-conservatism (and her syndicators to boot).

Kincaid writes:

On the charges of plagiarism that have been leveled against Coulter, one of the apparent sources for some of her material has come forward to say that he had his work used without attribution but that he isn’t offended or bothered by it. One of the charges was that she heavily borrowed, without attribution, some material from a Heritage Foundation report by Robert Knight on offensive "art" subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Knight, who now directs the Culture & Family Institute at Concerned Women for America, tells me that all of the NEA examples cited in the Coulter column “were right out of my paper, although the phrasing was changed. Several were in the exact order I had them in my paper. It appears that Miss Coulter cribbed them directly from my Heritage report. Since it involves a considerable number of examples (nine), it would have been nice if she had credited me or Heritage, but I’m not upset. I’m glad she used this stuff to good effect."

Mr. Salem, did you catch that?

Knight said that Coulter's column's NEA examples were "were right out of my paper, although the phrasing was changed."

However, it's not true that all the "phrasing was changed."

Three of the nine examples from Coulter's THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT RELIGION which almost fully match lines from the Heritage report (exact clauses duplicated are bolded, but most of the unbolded words are practically the same as well):

Heritage: One photo showed a woman breastfeeding an infant; it was titled Jesus Sucks.

Coulter: A photo of a woman breastfeeding an infant, titled "Jesus Sucks."

Heritage: The title of a photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open suggested the infant was available for oral sex.

Coulter: A photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open titled to suggest the infant was available for oral sex.

Heritage: Sprinkle masturbates with sex toys and, inserting a speculum into her vagina, invites audience members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Coulter: A female performer inserting a speculum into her vagina and inviting audience members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight.

"Several were in the exact order I had them in my paper," Knight said. "It appears that Miss Coulter cribbed them directly from my Heritage report."

Unfortunately, it doesn's seem to appear that way to Mr. Lee Salem, editor and president of Universal Press Syndicate.

But something does strike me odd about Robert Knight's forgiving nature. If he doesn't mind if Coulter "cribbed" from him and Heritage Foundation Research Assistant John M. Slye, why is he so certain that the sources he himself cited won't mind either?

After all, the Heritage report included footnotes.

For example, Knight gave credit for the "Jesus Sucks" "newborn infant" items to Betty Wein's March 2, 1984 article, "Sick, Pornographic 'Art' Funded with Your Taxes," published by The Washington Times.

The Annie Sprinkle example cites two sources: "Bush Rewards NEA with Raise," published by Human Events on February 10, 1990 and Valerie Richardson's "NEA Uses Tax Dollars to Fund Art Show by X-Rated Video Star," published on February 6, 1990 by The Washington Times.

Granted, with these examples, both The Washington Times and Human Events are conservative sources. But did Knight give them credit out of the goodness of his heart or because that's what's expected?

One would think a newspaper syndicator would apply the same principles to attribution as a conservative think tank. But, apparently, Universal Press Syndicate has much lower standards.

In his "get out of plagiarism jail free card" statement, Salem also said that there were "no merits to the allegations of plagiarism" and "[t]here are only so many ways you can rewrite a fact and minimal matching text is not plagiarism."

Perhaps the child reprimanded by her mother for getting her essay "off the internet" in this Univeral Press Syndicate distributed comic strip (which I'd reproduce here but I wouldn't want to infringe on anyone's copyrights) should be scrutinized by Mr. Lee Salem, and then maybe he'll get the picture that non-citation of sources is not a "game."

(The cribbing in Coulter's 2005 article was first discovered by The Rude Pundit last year, and I found more at Raw Story. Unfortunately, last year I didn't have LexisNexis access, and multiple trips to multiple libraries still didn't help me nail down the correct original source, but I did show how the same "similiar language" showed up in countless conservative publications online and off here.)

(Hat tip to Daniel Borchers for the Kincaid link. Borchers, a Republican, has previously reported on Coulter's probable plagiarism: PDF file article, and also has a current post at his friend's blog about the "Right Wing Coulter Smear Machine.")

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/30/2006 12:58:00 PM

"What really affects our life is the legal stuff, the legal thefts, the legal plunder of people like Tom DeLay, for the sole, in my opinion immoral, purpose of holding onto power," Richard Viguerie tells Raw Story's John Byrne (or you can also say John Byrne's Raw Story), in Reagan conservative lashes out at 'hijackers of the conservative movement'.

And here's two stories I had at RS the other week which I forgot to link...

From Time: Presidential adviser wants Bush to 'beef up' White House Counsel's office fearing possible Dem-controlled House probes:

An adviser to President George W. Bush wants the White House Counsel's office to be "beef[ed] up" in case a possibly Democratic controlled House pursues a "tangle of investigations," according to a Time Magazine web exclusive.

Near the end of an article about how "the crisis in Lebanon has dragged the Administration into the role of potential peacemaker," Time's Mike Allen reports that the Administration's "outlook" for the midterm elections reads "ominous" for the Republican Party and for President Bush.

....

According to the White House website, the White House Counsel office "advises the President on all legal issues concerning the President and the White House."

Harriet Miers currently serves as the White House Counsel, following Alberto Gonzales who was chosen last year to take over for Attorney General after John Ashcroft resigned. A year ago, The Washington Post reported that Miers led a staff of 13 lawyers.

From Oliver Stone unaware firm pitching his 9/11 film to conservatives worked on Swift Boat campaign:

"Oliver Stone, that symbol of everything about Hollywood that conservatives love to hate, is getting help in marketing his newest movie from an unlikely ally: the publicity firm that helped devise the Swift boat campaign attacking John Kerry's Vietnam record in the 2004 presidential race," begins an article in Thursday's edition of the New York Times, RAW STORY has found.

According to a Salon report written two years ago, the firm Creative Response Concept is run by two former communication directors for Pat Buchanan, and has represented such clients as "the Christian Coalition, National Taxpayers Union, Media Research Council and Regnery Publishing."

....

Stone claims that while he had just learned about the firm's prior "political work" he wasn't surprised to hear about "skeletons in the closet" because it's an "impure market."

....

The Times reports that the studio decided that it wasn't necessary to also pitch to liberal groups.

"A Paramount spokesman said that the studio did not similarly pitch liberal groups in its multifront promotional campaign, reasoning that the entertainment press had covered that base," Halbfinger writes for the Times.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/28/2006 04:38:00 PM

(Editor's Note: Coulter doesn't directly say that Clinton is gay in this video...but that his philandering has "a whiff of the bathhouse" to it - which is extremely offensive and certainly homophobic - but not the same as saying he's gay. Give her another day and she might come right out and say that...but it seems to me she's being carefully outrageous more than anything.)

(I'm certainly not trying to defend Coulter but I would like to point out her "theory" isn't something she made up. Here's a link to an article published 13 years ago by Psychology Today which basically asserts that predominately male philanderers use sex to "affirm their masculinity and overcome both their homophobia and their fear of women ." Again. I'm not defending Coulter nor that theory - although I would agree that serial male philanderers essentially look down upon women - just providing context.)

(I apologize to all my guest bloggers for the recent editor notes but since I've done a lot of reporting on Coulter's inaccuracies, etc. I feel like I have to weigh in on all things Coulter-related here...but please keep posting whatever you want! - RB)

# posted by Michael Hussey : 7/28/2006 01:38:00 PM

In 1988, Ann Coulter was probably too busy finishing up law school to follow the Bush-Dukakis race very closely, but she devoted a chapter of her latest book to the infamous Willie Horton ads. There are no citations of sources for the excerpts included in this post, which is just as well, since most of the "facts" are anything but...

From Ann Coulter's Godless (Chapter 3, p. 66):

There are actually two Willie Horton ads, and they are generally conflated. Both were terrific ads. The Bush campaign's Willie Horton ad never showed a picture of Horton, which complicated their sneaky plan to appeal to Americans'nearly hysterical hatred of black people. The only ad to show Horton's face was produced by an independent group that included Horton's victims, Cliff Barnes and Angela Miller. The victims' ad was made on a shoestring budget and was probably seen by about six people in West Virginia.

Actually, Ann, there were four Willie Horton ads.

One official Bush campaign ad called "Revolving Door."

Two ads "produced by an independent group that included Horton's victims, Cliff Barnes and Angela Miller" respectively in each one (a clip of the Miller spot can be seen approximately 1 minute 50 seconds into this YouTube video). And those ads began running in California where presumably more than six people viewed them.

The fourth is only one of the most famous campaign ads of all time, one that isn't mentioned in Coulter's entire chapter on Willie Horton even once: The infamous "Weekend Passes" advertisement (Video link) was "independently" produced by GOP consultant Larry McCarthy, who had once worked for former Bush media consultant Roger Ailes (and the "one-man production company" also responsible for "Weekend Passes" also had ties to Ailes).

(The Federal Election Commission later investigated possible coordination between the official Bush campaign and the "independent" admakers but the commissioners ended up "deadlocked" at 3 to 3; here's a link to some interesting emails supposedly from Ailes on the Horton ads, if they're not authentic they are at least a hoot to read).

"Weekend Passes" certainly contains shots of Horton's face. Two. Though not in the commercial's original airings. The Horton shots were apparently added later.

"But almost immediately after it began running, as a Brown University study of the ad revealed, GOP consultant Larry McCarthy, who worked for National Security PAC, stealthily inserted a looming mug shot of Horton in a substitute version of the ad, revealing the convict to be -- ta da! -- an African-American," Jake Tapper reported for Salon in 2000. "McCarthy said the photo of Horton used in the ad was 'every suburban mother's greatest fear.'"

"Their first ad did not use the menacing mug shot of Horton that made him look, in the eyes of the ad's creator Larry McCarthy, like 'every suburban mother's greatest fear,'" according to a study conducted by Brown University. "That picture might arouse the ire of network censors, who could refuse to run controversial ads by independent groups. However, after the ad cleared media scrutiny, McCarthy quietly substituted a second version that graphically cited the Horton case and used the now-controversial mug shot of the felon."

From Ann Coulter's Godless (Chapter 3, p. 71):

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign bent over backwards to avoid any acknowledgment of the fact that Horton was black, going to the ridiculous extreme of showing all white people in prison.

Bush's campaign ad certainly did not only show "all white people in prison."

"But the official campaign ad never mentioned Horton's name; and, of the 19 "prisoners" making their way through the "revolving door" of the Massachusetts penal system, 16 were white, two black and one Latino," Tapper wrote for Salon.

"Revolving Door" can be seen at the The Living Room Candidate Website. Watch the dark-skinned male with the large Afro walk through the "revolving door." And if you missed it the first time, don't worry because the very next scene shows the very same man walking through the very same "revolving door" this time from a wider angle.

And I'm just getting started on this chapter...more to come...including more factual errors and non-citation of sources (technically plagiarism).

Click for Homepage to see countless examples of factual errors and possible plagiarism by Ann Coulter found by The Rude Pundit; the plagiarism expert commissioned by The New York Post; and from my work at Raw Story and here.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/27/2006 07:54:00 AM

What we're seeing here is, in a sense, the growing—the birth pangs of a new Middle East, and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old Middle East.

# posted by Michael Hussey : 7/25/2006 03:15:00 PM

I'll get the Coulter out of the way first.

The Rude Pundit points to a column written by Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald on Coulter and plagiarism called "Wonder how Ann Coulter fills her books?." It's a fictional phone call with Shrill Voice (aka Ann Coulter) since the paper wasn't able to contact the alleged plagiarist.

Me: Oh . . . hello, Ms. Coulter. This is the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. We're calling to ask why your new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" includes a sentence that matches almost verbatim one from our newspaper.

SV: Who is this really? Is that you, Al Franken?

Me: No, ma'am. It's true. You see, back in 1999, we asked our readers what they thought were Maine's top news stories for the 20th century. One ballot entry went like this: "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."

SV: So what?

Me: Well, on page 5 of "Godless," you wrote: "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."

SV: You lobotomized little liberal media creep. Are you calling me a plagiarist?

Me: Excellent question. But after much deliberation, the consensus here is that lifting one factual sentence out of a daily newspaper isn't really plagiarism.

SV: Hallelujah. Now bug off.

(By the way, The Rude Pundit found that lifting before anyone else just a couple days after Godless was released)

Coulter didn't just lift one sentence from the Portland Press Herald, however.

From my Raw Story article "More examples of 'possible plagiarism' from Coulter's 'Godless' book":

In the second chapter of Godless (page 55), Coulter employs language similar to a December, 2004 article written by Gregory D. Kesich for the Portland Press Herald on convicted killer Dennis Dechaine, but offers no citations for her summation of the case.

Coulter: "The case began in 1988, when Jennifer Henkel returned to her home in Bowdoin, Maine, to find her baby alone and her twelve-year old babysitter Sarah Cherry missing.”

Kesich: "The case against Dennis Dechaine began on Wednesday, July 6, 1988, when Jennifer Henkel returned to her home in Bowdoin at 3:20 p.m. to find her front door open and her baby sitter missing."

Coulter: "Henfel found a notebook and a car repair receipt with Dechaine’s name on it in the driveway."

Kesich: "Outside she found a little loose-leaf notebook and a car repair bill with Dechaine's name on it."

Coulter: "She had been stabbed repeatedly in the throat and head, and strangled with a scarf."

Kesich: "She had been raped with sticks, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly with a small blade around her throat."

Coulter: "The rope used to bind Cherry was later demonstrated to be part of the same rope that was found in Dechaine’s truck."

Kesich: "The rope used to tie Sarah was made of the same material as a yellow plastic rope found in Dechaine's truck."

9/11

From my RS article "Oliver Stone 9/11 movie being marketed towards conservatives, evangelicals":

Oliver Stone's soon-to-be-released film about two New York City Port Authority police officers who were buried in the rubble in the 9/11 attacks is being marketed towards conservatives and evangelicals by Paramount Pictures, RAW STORY has found.

"Paramount Pictures is in the midst of a campaign to win over conservatives and evangelicals to support Oliver Stone's new movie, "World Trade Center," writes Robert B. Bluey for The Right Angle at Human Events Online. "A private screening of the film last night in Washington, D.C., brought out big names on the right, and similar events are planned nationwide before the film opens on August 9."

"The conservative and evangelical outreach is being directed by Greg Mueller and his firm, Creative Response Concepts," writes Bluey.

According to a Salon report written two years ago, Creative Response Concepts, which is run by two former communication directors for Pat Buchanan, has represented such clients as "the Christian Coalition, National Taxpayers Union, Media Research Council and Regnery Publishing," and also did some work for the Swift Boat Vets against John Kerry.

Full Raw Story article at this link.

Katrina

From my RS article "Colorado state rep blasted for linking 'black culture' to Katrina woes in email":

"State Rep. Jim Welker is once again drawing criticism for forwarding an e-mail in which black conservatives and religious leaders blame 'black culture' for problems surrounding Hurricane Katrina," according to a Rocky Mountain News article.

Welker forwarded an article from the conservative Cybercast News Service called "'Black Culture' Blamed for Hurricane Katrina Woes," to his constituents.

"Nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city of New Orleans, some prominent black conservatives and religious leaders blame cultural problems among African Americans, not the government, for 'the great breakdown witnessed during and following' the natural disaster," wrote Alison Espach for CNS.com.

....

Welker told the Rocky Mountain News that he wasn't racist, but he refused to apologize for forwarding the article.

"I have black people who work for me," Welker told Rocky Mountain News. "Some of my good friends are different colors."

Full Raw Story article at this link.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/23/2006 02:51:00 PM

(Note: This article was written by guest blogger Suskind. I don't think Coulter is very funny when she jokes about sending "anthrax letters" but I don't personally support any boycott or campaign to get her column dropped because of the "original" content in her articles. I wouldn't want the same to happen to Ted Rall, for instance. But aside from an editor's note I allow my guest bloggers to write what they want to write.)

The following is a letter to Rizolli/Universal, National Geographic and Signatures:

Dear Rizolli, Signatures, and National Geographic,

This letter is to call to your attention that Andrews McMeel Universal, of which you are a client affiliate, is the publisher, through Universal Press Syndicate, of Ann Coulter who has in recent weeks called for the death of the editor and staff of the New York Times.

On July 18, 2006 in an email to Jacob Bernstein of Women's Wear Daily, Ms. Coulter claimed responsibility for the envelope sent to the New York Times containing an editorial "Freedom of the Press" and a suspicious and threatening white powder. Under Federal law, this is a Class B Felony, terrorist hoax act. ¹

Ann Coulter has also "joked" about killing other people, including Arabs, Muslims, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Rep. John Murtha, and suggested that blowing up The New York Times building might be a good idea, especially if the reporters and editors were still inside. ²

As a result of her extremism, Ms. Coulter has been dropped from the Alexandria Chronicle, MSNBC, USA Today, The Cedar Rapids Gazette, The Arizona Daily Star, the Centre Daily Times, among others.

I am writing to ask you please to cease your business relationship with Andrews McMeel Universal, as the values you represent can in no way be considered consistent with those of Ann Coulter who is syndicated with and defended by Universal Press Syndicate. ³

Sincerely yours, M. Suskind

1. Jacob Bernstein; Memo Pad; Jacob Bernstein; Women's Wear Daily; July 18, 2006 2. Editor & Publisher; July 13, 2006; Coulter Backs Call for Execution of 'NYT' Editor; Ann Coulter: July 12, 2006N.Y. TIMES: BETTER DEAD THAN READ 3. Universal Executive Responds to 'E&P' Column on Ann Coulter

The Signatures list of 250 music industry clients can be found here

Addresses useful to demand dropping Ann Coulter:

Universal Press Syndicate 4520 Main Street Kansas City, MO 64111-7701

Andrews McMeel Universal 4520 Main Street Kansas City, MO 64111-7701

Addresses useful to demand dropping Andrews McMeel Universal:

Rizzoli/Universe International Publications 300 Park Avenue South, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10010

Signatures Network 2 Bryant Street, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94105

National Geographic Society 1145 17th Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036-4688

Other useful addresses:

Scott Heekin-Canedy President and General Manager The New York Times Company 229 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036

Ann Coulter anncright@aol.com

Jacob Bernstein Women's Wear Daily Fairchild Publications 750 3rd Avenue 5th Floor New York, NY 10017

Criminal Codes Terrorist Hoax Act:

* H.R. 3209, THE "ANTI-HOAX TERRORISM ACT OF 2001" * SENATE BILL REPORT: SB 6704 * Class B Felony: DOMESTIC SECURITY ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2003

Charges can be filed through: The Office of the New York State Attorney General where there are forms to fill out to report class b felony of Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter

# posted by Suskind : 7/21/2006 09:34:00 PM

After learning that Ann Coulter may have "liberally lifted" from his work in her best-selling book Godless, a journalist slams the conservative pundit for "sloppiness and carelessness" in not citing his published book review with a footnote.

Though Coulter does cite the original author of the quotes, other statements in her book indicate that she either did not read the book itself, or chose to misrepresent the author.

"I think it is quite clear that Coulter used the excerpt from my review rather than referring to the original source," said Mark Engler, a New York City based writer and activist.

For the first chapter of her book, entitled "On the Seventh Day, God Rested and Liberals schemed," Coulter refers to a 2003 best seller which centered on a notorious crime committed by Mormon fundamentalists in the early eighties (Chapter 1, pp. 16-17):

In the book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer writes of the Bush administration, "This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian...who characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest law officer in the land, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect—the Pentecostal Assemblies of God of America...and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City."

However, that entire quotation, excerpted from a paragraph in Krakauer’s book, originally appeared in a book review written by Mark Engler in 2003 for the independent journalism magazine, In These Times.

In one of his few mentions of the White House, Krakauer reminds us that, "This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian...who characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest law officer in the land, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect—the Pentecostal Assemblies of God of America—...and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City."

Aside from removing the second dash after "America," Coulter's excerpt reads exactly the same, including the same points of ellipsis, excluding the same parts of Krakauer’s paragraph not excerpted in Engler’s review.

This is how the paragraph originally appeared in Krakauer’s book, before Engler excerpted it:

This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian, President George W Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest law officer in the land, Attorney General John, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect—the Pentecostal Assemblies of God-who begins each day at the justice Department with a devotional prayer meeting for his staff, periodically has himself anointed with sacred oil, and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City."

‘Implausible’ Coulter didn’t use his review

Engler agreed that if Coulter had used Krakauer's book as a source instead of just his review, she probably would have thrown in "President George W Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God," which could have served her thesis better.

"In the previous paragraph of my review I had discussed an incident in which President Bush exhibits a belief 'that he is an instrument of God,' as Krakauer puts it," Engler said. "Given that, I thought it would be unnecessary to include that phrase in the Krakauer quote, and I excerpted it out with an ellipsis."

"I can't see any reason why Coulter would have excerpted in the same way for her writing if she was quoting from the actual book," Engler added. "Faced with a tight word count on my article, I truncated some of the other sentences, but again, it seems implausible that Coulter would have done so in the exact same manner on her own."

Engler also notes that in the next paragraph Coulter writes "my guess, not a Christian" about Krakauer when that fact would have been evident to anyone who read the book, or even read Engler's full review.

"Krakauer's own lack of religious conviction is an important theme in Under the Banner of Heaven, and anyone who read the book would not have to guess about him not being a Christian," Engler said. "For that matter, anyone who read my review in its entirety would know that Krakauer has a 'critical view of faith in general' and 'depicts religious conviction as essentially irrational and deluded.'"

Engler theorized how Coulter’s "team" may have "cribbed" from his work.

"I suspect that Coulter had heard some mention of Krakauer's bestseller, wanted to comment on it, and sent a researcher off to find a relevant quote," Engler said. "Then her team pulled the excerpt from my review."

Prior Coulter plagiarism allegations

John Barrie, a plagiarism expert who devised an "iThenticate" plagiarism-probing system, said that Coulter had likely plagiarized in her book and some of her syndicated columns in an article in last Sunday's New York Post. Some of the examples cited by Barrie and the Post were first discovered online nearly a year ago.

The Rude Pundit first blogged about the apparent plagiarism in a June 2005 column by Coulter last summer, and RAW STORY followed up on the blogger's work, revealing that the column was little more that a cut-and-paste repetition of points authored by conservative religious groups in the early 1990s.

One of the three examples of "textbook plagiarism" in Godless cited by Barrie was also noted first by The Rude Pundit last month days after the book's release. RAW STORY then reported that Coulter "cribbed" a list of adult stem cell treatments from a Right To Life website for the seventh chapter of her book nearly word-for-word.

The senior vice president for the company that published Coulter's Godless characterizes previous plagiarism allegations as "trivial," "meritless" and "irresponsible."

"We have reviewed the allegations of plagiarism surrounding Godless and found them to be as trivial and meritless as they are irresponsible," Crown Publishing Group's Steve Ross told the New York Post a few weeks ago.

"The number of words used by our author in these snippets is so minimal that there is no requirement for attribution," Ross told the Post's Niles Lathem, who also reports that Ross "defended his best-selling polemicist by noting there are 19 pages of endnotes."

But Ross was referring to only the three examples cited by Barrie in the original Post article.

So far, 12 different examples of Coulter apparently re-using unsourced material have been reported.

'Adds to the case for wrong-doing'

Engler said that in regards to his book review, Coulter had seemingly committed "a much lower order of plagiarism," but that it "adds to the case for wrong-doing."

"The uncredited re-use of the excerpt is certainly a much lower order of plagiarism than actually presenting someone else's words as your own," Engler said. "In my student days, it would have merited a footnote saying 'as cited in...'"

"On its own," Engler doesn't see it as a "serious ethical breach," but he does believe that it suggests "a certain sloppiness and carelessness in her writing, though."

"When put alongside more substantial accusations of plagiarism, I think it adds to the case for wrong-doing," Engler said.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/21/2006 12:30:00 AM

From a press release issued by the Genetics Policy Institute called Adult Stem Cell Talking-Point Demolished:

On July 13, three stem cell experts published a letter in the journal "Science", along with detailed supporting data, that has demolished the lynchpin argument and key talking point of the religious right and others who oppose the expansion of funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council had long- promoted a list of 65 medical conditions supposedly treated by adult stem cells, thereby sending the message that adult stem cells were currently delivering treatments and thus there was no need to fund embryonic stem cell research.

The letter to "Science" stated in its concluding paragraph "By promoting the falsehood that adult stem cell treatments are already in general use for 65 diseases and injuries, Prentice and those who repeat his claims mislead laypeople and cruelly deceive patients."

"Only nine of the so-called treatments were actually approved by the FDA. In fact, much of the Prentice list was comprised of anecdotal data drawn from such sources as testimony from Congressional hearings, distortions of published research reports and even a newspaper clipping," said Bernard Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute.

Siegel said, "The misleading treatment list has been the most cherished tool of the opponents of embryonic stem cell research and the list was often cited by prominent research foes such as Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and most recently by Ann Coulter, in her book where she expanded the list to 80."

I believe that the press release is in error. In Godless, from what I've read, Coulter only listed 16 examples, but last month she gave an interview to Cybercast News Service about her book where she did say 80:

Cybercast News Service: Please compare the success between adult stem-cell research and research using embryonic stem cells. What does this show about liberals' attitude toward science?

Ann Coulter: The difference in their success is roughly equivalent to the difference in success between the computer and the flushless toilet. Adult stem cells have been used to treat more than 80 diseases. Embryonic stem cells have cured nothing -- they have never, ever been tried in one human clinical trial. The embryonic stem cell debate is a fraud to lure Americans into ceding ground on human experimentation.

The Washington Post had an article on the letter published in the Science journal the other day. None of the treatments cited in the Coulter list (or I should say Illinois Right to Life Committee list) are "demolished" in the Post article, but the three researchers claim that there "are only nine diseases that have been proved to respond to treatment with adult stem cells."

Coulter's list wasn't only diseases, however, so it's still possible that none of the items she re-used are bogus.

Double however, there is at least one item on Coulter's list that may be "demolished" in this pdf link of research accompanying the Science journal letter.

More to come on this...

Nothing to do with Coulter but here's a link to an article I wrote for Raw Story the other day with the incredibly long title "Time: 'Steamy spy scandal' at State Dept. as Nat'l Intel czar Negroponte operation is linked to Taiwanese spying case."

Excerpts:

A "steamy spy scandal" at the State Department is brewing as Time Magazine links an operation by US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to the case involving Taiwanese agent Isabelle Cheng and Donald W. Keyser, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

....

The latest filing indicates that prosecutors intend to charge Keyser for "espionage-related" offenses, and also raises questions about his spouse.

"The new filing could also raise awkward questions for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Negroponte because Keyser’s wife Margaret Lyons is a senior cia official on loan in a sensitive post helping set up a new open-source unit of dni," write Timothy J. Burger and Adam Zagorin for Time Magazine.

Time did some excellent reporting on this (and the New York Sun, also, on the filing), but since it's such a confusing story I thought that a little more background would be helpful.

Information on Cheng seems to be very scarce. I wasn't able to find anything on the circumstances which led to her cooperating with the federal prosecutors, and there hasn't even been a whole lot of reporting on this case at all, it seems. But maybe it will get juicier.

Also, other non-Coulter stuff I did the last few days: Russert to Novak: Everyone fought subpoenas, why didn't you? and News turns 'old' after 36 hours on the Web.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/18/2006 03:01:00 AM

The title change to this blog is only temporary, but the focus will be mostly on Coulter's book for the next few weeks. Obviously, it's not the most important thing in the world right now - for that matter neither is Iraq for probably the first time in three years - but since most of my time is spent working at Raw I don't think I'm neglecting anything.

Anyway...yes...there are more examples of alleged Godless plagiarism and uncited sources coming...but my primary focus right now with regards to Coulter is a series of interviews I've been conducting with a wide range of people...so it might be a day or two before I get new stuff up.

Finally, I'd just like to reprint 6 of the list of 15 of 16 "successful treatments achieved by adult stem cell research" that Coulter apparently cribbed from an unsourced anti-abortion Website, which I reported in June for Raw Story (a week after the one-and-only Rude Pundit's first Godless possible plagiarism finding, one of three examples of "textbook plagiarism" according to the "plagiarism expert" the New York Post later commissioned).

This is strictly for those who believe that Ann Coulter changed enough words around and doesn't deserve to be accused of plagiarism just because she didn't cite the source:

Illinois Right To Life: Restore weak heart muscles (using immature skeletal muscle cells)

Coulter: Restoring weak heart muscles using immature skeletal muscle cells

Illinois Right To Life: Treat urinary incontinence (using under arm muscle stem cells)

Coulter: Treating urinary incontinence using stem cells from underarm muscle

Illinois Right To Life: Restore bone marrow in cancer patients (using stem cells from umbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Restoring bone marrow in cancer patients using stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

Illinois Right To Life: Put leukemia into remission (using umbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Putting leukemia into remission using umbilical cord blood

Illinois Right To Life: Reverse severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) (using genetically modified adult stem cells)

Coulter: Reversing severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) with genetically modified adult cells.

Illinois Right To Life: Treat sickle-cell anemia (using stem cells from unbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Treating sickle-cell anemia using stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

"We have reviewed the allegations of plagiarism surrounding Godless and found them to be as trivial and meritless as they are irresponsible," Crown Publishing Group Vice President Steve Ross wrote.

"The number of words used by our author in these snippets is so minimal that there is no requirement for attribution," added Ross. "As an experienced author and attorney, Ms. Coulter knows when attribution is appropriate, as underscored by the nineteen pages of hundreds of endnotes contained in Godless."

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/15/2006 02:00:00 AM

"As soon as you're born they make you feel small

By giving you no time instead of it all

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all"

I was slandered, slimed, and smeared by the right yesterday.

Remember what happened the last time someone smeared me?

The funniest thing is that the conservative Website actually did give Rude Pundit and me credit (before basically smearing us both) but it's not even worth worrying about because it's so silly.

(Note: The other day, before editing the last couple of sentences, I alluded to two places but it looks like the other situation is getting resolved...)

Anyway, off the Coulter beat I have an article at Raw Story called Website for upcoming John Lennon documentary mocks Drudge Report, which is why I quoted the greatest Beatle up top twice from his greatest album.

Finally, here's a link to a transcript (with commentary) of Ann Coulter denying the plagiarism allegations on Fox News Channel at News Hounds.

"No serious person is taking it seriously..." said Ann Coulter.

Ha ha. Whoops, guess I proved Ann right.

"It was front page news when the charge came out," baited Neil Cavuto.

"Retractions did not make front page news," Coulter interrupted, according to News Hounds.

Really? Send me a copy of that mythical paper, Ann and Neil, why don't you, for my scrapbook.

Or better yet, point me out where on the front page of the Sunday, July 2nd New York Post Coulter's name or legs appear?

"You can't plagiarize the name 'George Bush,'" said Coulter.

Touché. Now that's actually kind of funny, though of course a complete exaggeration.

"But the syndicate of your columns did look into it exhaustively?" asked Neil Cavuto.

"The syndicate, the publisher..." replied Coulter.

Crown Publishing only examined 3 of the 11 so-far-reported examples, and most of the other ones found by The Rude Pundit and I involve at least three similiar lines from each respective source.

Coulter garbles nonsense at the end of the interview about how she's the truth-teller and that America's libel laws should be more like Britain's.

First off, this woman once said that former President Bill Clinton was a "very good rapist." I believe Ann Coulter would be locked up in the Tower of London for years upon years if America took that undemocratic route.

If Coulter is so sure of herself then why doesn't she go on a less friendly forum and answer real questions about the allegations?

Forums that don't have hosts that lie about a newspaper owned by the same company he works for so that you can "clear the record."

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/13/2006 11:19:00 AM

11, so far, reported examples of Coulter lifting from 11 other sources without quotation marks or citations, in her book Godless, published by Crown Publishing Group and Random House.

Last year, sportswriter Ken Powers was fired from his paper, The Telegram & Gazette, for just six examples of similiar lifting (link):

In his Jan. 30 piece, Powers wrote: "Each team was 0-1, and each had fallen to 0-1 in rather humiliating fashion. The Patriots had been shut out in Buffalo, 31-0, just four days after releasing very popular defensive captain Lawyer Milloy because he refused to take a substantial pay cut."

King had written, "Each team was 0-1, and each had fallen to 0-1 in rather humiliating fashion. The Patriots got shut out in Buffalo 31-0, just four days after whacking very popular defensive captain Lawyer Milloy because he wouldn't take a major pay cut."

The Rude Pundit has posts that mention other casualties of plagiarism such as Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker, Kaavya Viswanathan (who actually victimized another Crown Publishing Group author), and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/12/2006 04:07:00 PM

11 reported examples of similiar language, ideas and information using similiar sentence structure from 11 uncited sources. Most examples are three lines or more (links to the examples found by The Rude Pundit, plagiarism expert John Barrie via The New York Post, and me can be found elsewhere on this page).

11, so far. Plenty more to come.

Countless examples of taking entire sentences from material that is improperly cited; complete sentences and clauses reused without the use of proper quotation marks; footnotes that appear pages before or pages after they should and not enough to indicate where the similiar language, ideas and information came from.

Many factual errors, some related to Coulter's cribbing from unreputable sources, some so basic such as wrong years that are simply unacceptable in a major publisher's book placed in the non-fiction section of bookstores and libraries.

Do I want Coulter's book pulled for objectionable content? Hell no! But it's unacceptable that a major publisher put out a book by such a controversial author without even doing basic fact-checking or making sure that the sources are cited properly, never mind whether it was plagiarized or not.

Is Coulter guilty of plagiarism?

Technically, hell yeah.

Not citing your sources is plagiarism, and some of Coulter's sources are independently written and researched articles that writers spent a lot of time on and deserve the credit they damn well earned.

Many times Coulter refers to original quotes given to writers and there is no citation for the article or writer, even though a simple search on Nexis-Lexis or Google for the quote turns it up. Does Ann Coulter have any fact checkers or editors at all? When she writes "so-and-so told the Times" wouldn't that be a dead giveaway to any fact-checkers or editors that a proper citation is needed?

Whether Coulter should lose her column or her book contract or her fame is not my goal or even my concern. Hell...every day she seems to get another Republican to back away from her...why would I want to end that gravy train?

But Crown Publishing and Random House need to pull this joke of a book when it comes to basic fact-checking and editing and add the necessary quotation marks and citations so that it's not "textbook plagiarism."

So...no...I have no interest in seeing Coulter's (or anyone's) head on a pike. Freedom of speech, baby. Though some of her comments do come awfully close to objectionable hate speech or threats...I consider her more of an unfunny controversial satirist or entertainer than any kind of journalist (though obviously others feel differently)

But Crown Publishing Group Vice President Steve Ross either needs to take a hard look at this poorly sourced, edited book for real, front cover to back or, at the very least, apologize to the plagiarism spotters he slandered, thank them for bringing the cribbed language to his attention, and promise that future editions will contain all the cited sources that Coulter borrowed without acknowledging.

Even if Crown and Random House change the category to satire, they still need to credit the sources that Steve Ross evidently cares nothing about. Perhaps Steve Ross should start giving away his books since he seems to have such a low opinion about the worth of writers' work.

(Agitprop has details for contacting the publishers)

I could write a book about the plagiarism and factual errors in Ann Coulter's Godless...or at least a blog...

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/12/2006 03:49:00 AM

New article at Raw Story:

An ongoing RAW STORY examination of possible plagiarism and failure to cite sources by conservative pundit Ann Coulter in her best-selling book Godless has uncovered more examples that have yet to be reported or viewed by her publisher.

In addition to the three examples identified by plagiarism expert John Barrie (commissioned by The New York Post), three other examples cited by The Rude Pundit, and a list of fifteen items already reported by RAW STORY, the continuing investigation has turned up four more examples.

....

In the sixth chapter (page 163), Coulter employs language similar to that in a February, 2005 article published in the New York Sun, written by David Salisbury, the Director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, as well as numbers used in the Sun, without citing any source at all.

Coulter: "Between 1982 and 2001, spending on New York City public schools increased by more than 300 percent, clocking in at $11474 per pupil annually."

Salisbury: "In New York City, funding for public education has more than tripled since 1982, rising to $14.8 billion from $3.8 billion. In terms of per-pupil spending, that's an increase to $11,474 (for 2000-2001) from $4,165."

Coulter: "Only Washington, D.C., that hotbed of educational achievement, spends more per student."

Salisbury: "Only Washington, D.C., spends more, but doesn't get better results."

Read the rest at Raw Story.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/11/2006 12:18:00 PM

Let's take a detour from Ann Coulter plagiarism to Ann Coulter distortion.

From Ann Coulter's book, Godless, chapter 10, page 255:

HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins says she doesn’t "shy away from such R-rated topics as 'G-String Divas' and 'Taxicab Confessions'" but she complained of the imagined persecution she would face if she “made a movie about Darwin."

But Coulter leaves out a key word from Nevins' remarks during an acceptance speech for an award she received from the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in September of 2005, as reported by Reuters (which, strangely enough, is cited in Coulter's endnotes to the book): "now."

"If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary," Nevins said. "If we did a documentary on Darwin, I'd get a thousand hate e-mails."

Coulter derides Nevins' claim with some "original Internet research."

Evidently, it isn't that hard to make a fawning movie about Darwin in Hollywood. A partial list of movies and documentaries with Darwin's name in the title on the Internet Movie Database includes:

Coulter then lists 17 titles, with the latest released in 2004 ("Darwin's Nightmare" is an Oscar-nominated documentary from Australia on the devastating ecological and sociological effects on Tanzania after Nile perch were released in Lake Victoria and gobbled up most of the other species of fish, that was finally theatrically distributed in the US a few months ago, grossing around $200,000 so far), although Nevins spoke in September of 2005.

Fourteen of the seventeen films on Coulter's list were released before the Intelligent Design friendly George W. Bush "gobbled up" the 2000 presidency with the aid of a mostly Republican designed Supreme Court.

A current search on Darwin at the Internet Movie Database only turns up one film after 2004.

However, the 2006 comedy "The Darwin Awards" which starred Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes, wasn't exactly "a fawning movie about Darwin" but an adaptation based on a Website, saluting "the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways."

After one screening at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the critically panned film hasn't even received theatrical distribution in the United States.

Yet another example of how Coulter slants the truth to fit her facts.

(I have a couple articles with fresh "possible plagiarism" by Coulter which should be hitting the Internet very shortly)

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/11/2006 03:36:00 AM

I'm linking now with no comments...except to say that it's the case against Ann Coulter's book publisher for Godless which is much stronger and which shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

From Syndicator Denies Coulter Lifted Material by Hillel Italie, Associated Press National writer:

The syndicator of Ann Coulter's newspaper columns rejected allegations that she had lifted material from other sources, saying a review of the work in question turned up nothing that merited concern.

"There are only so many ways you can rewrite a fact and minimal matching text is not plagiarism," Lee Salem, editor and president of Universal Press Syndicate, said Monday in a statement.

"Universal Press Syndicate is confident in the ability of Ms. Coulter, an attorney and frequent media target, to know when to make attribution and when not to."

The New York Post and the Web sites Raw Story and the Rude Pundit have cited numerous passages in Coulter's syndicated columns and in her current book, "Godless," that appeared to resemble text from other sources. The Post relied upon a software program, iThenticate, designed to catch plagiarism.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/10/2006 07:12:00 PM

Today Newsweek checks in:

Ann Coulter: flame-throwing blowhard or lazy plagiarist? Both, according to allegations from plagiarism expert John Barrie in rawstory.com and tpmmuckraker.com.

Newsweek didn't single out Rude Pundit or me, like the Associated Press did (I have an article at Raw Story about the AP story) but we're both prominently mentioned at the linked sources.

I posted an article last year here about the absence of media attention after the first time RP and I fingered Coulter for liberal lifting...but what the hey...I think I'll repost it again, since the coverage in my opinion should still be wider.

More On Coulter's 'Copy & Paste' Column

So what do you know.

The mainstream media has yet to make any mention of the plagiarism committed by Ann Coulter in a June 29th column, first uncovered by The Rude Pundit, and followed up by this O.W.P.B. (Obsessed With Plagiarism Blogger) at Raw Story and here.

I can't say that I'm surprised.

After all, the work I've done on the rampant plagiarism by Jeff Gannon and others at the now defunct Talon News has also been ignored by the MSM.

But the Ann Coulter plagiarism has been noted in the alternative press; Walt Nett, the Media Watch columnist at Tuscon Weekly, wrote about it the other day in a piece entitled "Coulter: Plagio, ergo sum?."

Before I quote from Nett's article I'd like to re-run the most grievous examples of plagiarism that we uncovered in Coulter's articles for the benefit of the naysayers, on the right and left, who believe we were overreaching:

Coulter: "inserting a speculum into her vagina and inviting audience members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Counterpoint: "inserting a speculum into her vagina, invites members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Coulter: "...the sexual molestation of a group of 10 children in a pedophile's garage, including acts of bestiality, with the children commenting on how much they enjoyed the pedophilia."

Counterpoint: "...the sexual molestation of 10 children in a pedophile's garage, including acts of bestiality, and how much they enjoyed the pedophile's games."

Some right wingers who left comments at The Raw Story article defended Coulter by claiming that she was only presenting a list in bullet paragraphs, but since she reused much of the same language that doesn't excuse her as any third grade english teacher can tell you.

Not citing your sources is freakin' plagiarism. End of debate.

Back to Nett:

"As of this writing, the mainstream media still hasn't picked up on the latest credibility controversy surrounding conservative columnist Ann Coulter--that several chunks of her June 29 column appear to be lifted from sources as much as 20 years old."

"The story has been bounding through the political blogosphere since mid-July. And the similarities between Coulter's column and previously published works are pretty damning."

Nett gives a fews examples, with links to Raw Story and The Rude Pundit (but not me...waaaah!), and then reveals that he called Coulter's boss about it:

"We sent a note last week to Greg Melvin, Coulter's handler at Universal Press Syndicate, asking if he or she or Universal Press had any comments on the current controversy. No answer."

I betcha Universal Press wouldn't ignore similiar accusations if they were directed at Ted Rall, for instance.

Nett ends his article with this:

"It will be interesting to see what Universal Press, the Star and the other newspapers that buy Coulter's column do about this, assuming anyone in the mainstream looks into the June 29 plagiarism allegations."

This O.W.P.B. certainly won't be holding his breath, that's for sure.

Although, I was awfully surprised that Bill O'Reilly didn't mention it in his argument with Coulter the other night (check out the Crooks and Liars video). I thought for sure that O'Reilly had my blog bookmarked since I'm one of the few left-leaning bloggers who never brought up loofahs and falafels (whoops...I did now).

(Hat Tip to EZsuds81 for linking to my blog at Goaz.com and mentioning the Tucson Weekly article which I found through Google)

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/09/2006 08:57:00 PM

Cool blog but recommended for the July 7 post...which I'm not linking to directly cause I don't want to scare the crickets.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/09/2006 01:14:00 AM

As Daily Kos argues whether or not this TPM Muckraker compiled list of plagiarism allegations (stuff dug up by The Rude Pundit, The New York Post and plagiarism expert John Barrie, The Boston Globe, and me) qualifies as plagiarism or not, and Coulter's publisher dismisses everything as "trivial," "meritless" and "irresponsible," I do want to remind readers that there are still more examples that I found that I haven't reported on yet.

My next article on Coulter's possible plagiarism should hit Raw Story by Tuesday, and don't be surprised if The Rude Pundit pulls more out of his sleeve...because thars fool's gold in them thar landfills.

UPDATE

R.P. just informed me that our work on Coulter was recognized by the Associated Press today.

Here's a link to 'Right-Wing Pundit's Work Under Scrutiny' by Hillel Italie:

The syndicator of Ann Coulter's newspaper column is looking into allegations that the right-wing pundit has lifted material from other sources.

"We are reviewing the material and expect to have a response some time next week," Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, told The Associated Press on Friday.

The New York Post and the Web sites Raw Story and the Rude Pundit have raised numerous questions about Coulter's columns, which appear in more than 100 newspapers, and her best-selling "Godless," already notorious for the author's calling four 9/11 widows, who supported Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004, "harpies" thriving on their husbands' demise.

Sweet. Almost makes me forget about all the online websites and blogs that keep claiming that the New York Post broke this story (especially silly when most of those same unnamed blogs and websites previously reported on our findings). It sucks when blogs (though R.S. is technically not a blog we're grouped in that category) can't get recognition from the media, but it's even worse when your brothers and sisters shit on you too.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/07/2006 06:48:00 PM

Coulter

Check out video from Keith Olbermann's coverage of Ann Coulter plagiarism at Raw Story, along with a round-up of the latest developments on all of that (I'm told that Scarborough also tore into Coulter for the "p word" last night).

I also forgot to link to this prior round-up at Raw Story about the Post's "confirmation" of stuff that The Rude Pundit and I already covered, but that's nothing new in the blogosphere.

I was working on another Raw Story article about plagiarism in Godless, but I've been replaced by a machine. Methinks somebody out there in trademarked Blogtopia should invest in one of these new fangled inventions and set to work on exposing plagiarists of all stripes in all types of industries.

Anyway, I will put up a post in a couple of days with all that I found in Godless that I haven't written about yet. Many, many factual errors there be in that book.

(Also want to add links to recent posts by the Ponce de Leon of Coulter plagiarism, formally known as The Rude Pundit, blogenfreude at Agitprop for helping to remind others where they read this stuff first, and if you can handle the annoying pop-up ad, check out The Garlic for an "exclusive 1st draft of Coulter's plagiarism response," which would probably look familiar to me if I wasn't a hardcore Mets fan.)

Crickets

I'm moving on.

Meaning that the storyline re-introduced here early Friday morning isn't going to be continuing at this location. However, that ongoing storyline is currently going strong at the right and left blogs mentioned in my last two posts, and - let's put it this way - I ain't suppressing anything.

Hopefully you'll read about it everywhere soon, just not here, where the sound of crickets more than anything can only be heard since Friday.

It's really tough to maintain a blog and contractually work for a news organization at the same time, and, unfortunately, I can't publicly talk more about this situation, except to solemnly swear that the reasons I'm pulling back now - and have pulled back before - are reasons that I completely agree with and reasons that are far more complex than a Vis Numar diagram of the trans-Neptunian ring around a certain moderate Democratic southern governor.

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/05/2006 04:48:00 PM

Ann Coulter last night on Jay Leno (link):

This one -- this one was the least edited of my books.

Really? What a shock.

This professor would probably flunk the Godless author (thanks Ann for naming your book that...it fits you to a T):

The Raw Story has some damning evidence that Ann Coulter plagiarized a section of her book from a pro-life web site.

....

That, my friend is plagiarism.

Further, it isn’t very good research and is poor argumentation. If one just find a list on the internet that support one’s point of view, that’s pure laziness. And, to make matter worse, if it is a list that itself lacks substantial sourcing to undergird its claims, the list is worthless.

I wouldn’t accept that kind of work from an undergraduate.

The Rude Pundit explains why this all matters:

In the scheme of things, no, the story of Coulter's plagiarism is not more important than anything going on in Iraq, any election, any bill or debate in Congress, anything going on in the economy, volcanoes, hurricanes, and more. But, in terms of news, it's a fuck of a lot more important than anything that has to do with a weeping Britney, Brangelina, a $1.7 million car that's a lemon, and a naked guy trying to get his girlfriend to marry him, all of which are receiving extensive coverage. The Coulter story is about the basic acceptance of dishonesty in the conservative movement. Indeed, the right functions only because of liars and cheats and grifters who are aided and abetted by a media that refuses to call them on their lies.

Except for the part about the naked guy...I'm in complete agreement with RP.

AGITPROP asks What if Coulter's publisher had to pull the book?

Imagine - what if we ineffective little bloggers could get Coulter's book pulled? By now, you know that The Rude Pundit and Raw Story have caught Coulter red-handed - much of her "book" is taken from other sources but not attributed - this is known as PLAGIARISM. And you may remember that Little Brown pulled Kaavya Viswanathan's first (and last) novel after they caught her lifting large portions from two books by Megan F. McCafferty.

AGITPROP provides the address and phone number for Coulter's publisher, Crown Publishing Group at Random House. If you contact the lovely people who publish books without much fact-checking, tell them there's more to come!

(originally posted on 6/26)

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/03/2006 08:37:00 PM

I guess the truth is out.

The reason why I've written articles about the plagiarism in Ann Coulter's "work" is because I secretly want to be her.

Message by Coulter fan:

Who the hells Ron Brynaert????

Ron Brynaert?

Ron Brynaert is a has-been, never-been, never-will-be, useful-idiot who wishes he could be Ann.

I"ll be he dresses up reeeaaal goood an has a perty mouth...LMAO...jealous bee-achhhh

If only I could be one/tenth the hateful, lying, hypocrite that Ann Coulter is.

Besides, The Rude Pundit has got a much pertier mouth than me.

I'm still working on the next installment to the Ann Coulter plagiarism saga, but since I'm going through it with a reeeaaal, perty comb it's going to take me longer than anticipated to finish.

But how about a couple more examples of Godless errors in Ann Coulter's book, which was published by Crown Publishing Group at Random House, a company that doesn't seem to spend much time fact-checking or editing Ann's books.

Mistakes from Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism:

A Coulter two-for-one mistake:

From Chapter 1, Page 8, Coulter writes:

In the 1970s, Paul Ehrlich wrote the best-selling book The Population Bomb, predicting global famine and warning that entire nations would cease to exist by the end of the twentieth century—among them, England.

Erhrlich's book came out in 1968 (Google examples), and his oft-repeated quote - "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." - wasn't in The Population Bomb (link Michael Fumento, since she only trusts conservative sources).

This next one isn't a mistake...it's an out-and-out distortion.

From Chapter 1 Page 15, Coulter writes:

Within a few weeks of each other in early 2006, both Rolling Stone and Newsweek magazines displayed their ignorance of Biblical passages cited during interviews. In a Rolling Stone interview, Republican senator Sam Brownback criticized countries like Sweden that had legalized gay marriage, quoting the line from Matthew "you shall know them by their fruits."

The interviewer, Jeff Sharlet, interpreted Brownback’s scriptural quotation as a homophobic slur. Soon gay groups were demanding an apology from the senator. (All I can say to that is: how niggardly of them.)

Coulter is clearing implying that Rolling Stone's Sharlet didn't recognize the line as scripture. She's lying. He did. He recognized it as scripture perverted to espouse homophobia.

Rolling Stone:

He shakes his head in sorrow, thinking of Sweden, which Christian conservatives believe has been made by "social engineering" into an outer ring of hell. "You'll know 'em by their fruits," Brownback says. He pauses, and an awkward silence fills the room. He was citing scripture -- Matthew 7:16 -- but he just called gay Swedes "fruits."

How the Washington Post covered it:

Deep in Rolling Stone's 7,000-word profile of Republican Sen. Sam Brownback , the conservative Kansan picked a startling bit of Scripture to explain his opposition to homosexuality.

"You look at the social impact of the countries that have engaged in homosexual marriage," he said, citing the example of Sweden to writer Jeff Sharlet before adding: "You'll know 'em by their fruits." An awkward silence followed, in Sharlet's telling.

It's a reference to Matthew 7:16 -- often interpreted to mean that one can judge a prophet's sincerity by his deeds -- but, Sharlet noted, it kinda sounded like the senator was calling gay Swedes "fruits."

A spokesman in Brownback's office said someone would return our calls to discuss this, but no one did yesterday.

The next week Brownback issued a statement:

When quoting Matthew 7:16, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits,’ I was in no way referring to sexual orientation. While this biblical passage was pertinent to our overall conversation about faith and deeds, it apparently led the writer to believe I was making a joke; I was not and would never do so with such a personal and sensitive issue.

If Coulter wants to take Brownback's word that he meant no disrespect to gays, Swedes, apples or oranges, that's her prerogative. But "ignorance of Biblical passages" has absolutely nothing to do with this situation, and borders on slander.

Both Coulter passages came from the first fifteen pages of her book, and there are still more that I found in that first chapter that I'll write about at a future date (probably not for at least a few weeks).

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/03/2006 01:41:00 PM

Introduction by The Rude Pundit:

The Rude Pundit has been investigating Ann Coulter's new "book" Godless for potential plagiarism, having discovered at least one rather textbook example and one suspicious simlarity in the first chapter. But, still and all, it didn't amount to much unless more parts of the book were shown to be plagiarized. So here ya go.

The Rude Pundit and Ron Brynaert of Raw Story are offering more examples of Coulter's loose belief in giving credit where credit is due if that credit is not hers.

Today, The Rude Pundit shows Coulter borrowing liberally (rather than say...conservatively) from a 1988 press conference led by at-the-time Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes, helping to demonize furloughed murderer Willie Horton to help the senior President Bush beat off former Massachussetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

From my article at Raw Story, For new book Coulter 'cribs' adult stem cell treatment list from right to life group:

In an attempt to counter a New York Times article, conservative pundit Ann Coulter appears to have inserted a list which was originally compiled by an anti-abortion group almost word-for-word into her new book, RAW STORY has found.

The seventh chapter of "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" is devoted to "the left's war on science," which - according to Coulter - includes attacking and lying about "the science that is working" so as "to elevate the science that has produced nothing."

.....

But fifteen of Coulter's examples are nearly identical to a longer list of seventeen compiled by the Illinois Right To Life website, which has been available since at least September of 2003 (current link, archived 9/03 link).

"Repair heart attack damage (using the patient’s own blood stem cells)," says the Illinois Right To Life Committee Website.

"Repairing heart attack damage with the patient’s own blood stem cells," writes Coulter.

"Restore bone marrow in cancer patients (using stem cells from umbilical cord blood)," says the Website.

"Restoring bone marrow in cancer patients using stem cells from umbilical cord blood," Coulter writes.

For these fifteen items, Coulter appears to do little more than remove the parentheses and slightly change a word or two, such as "using" into "with."

.....

So far, at least one book reviewer has lauded Coulter for the list she "puts together."

"Coulter puts together an impressive list of successful achievements using adult stem cells, including repairing spinal cord injuries, treating sickle-cell anemia, restoring bone marrow in cancer patients, restoring eye sight and repairing weakened heart muscles," wrote Lisa De Pasquale for the conservative website, Human Events Online (link).

....

Nearly a year ago, The Rude Pundit caught Coulter apparently lifting passages from various texts "without attribution" for a column on controversial examples of "speech that has been funded in whole or in part by taxpayers." Shortly after, RAW STORY followed up and found even more examples from that same column (link).

Many of the bulleted items in Coulter's 2005 column were part and parcel of a long propaganda campaign waged by the Reverend Donald Wildmon's American Family Association and other conservative religious groups to end public funding of the arts. In fact, many of Coulter's examples were originally included in a 1990 AFA advertisement published in USA Today and The Washington Times bashing the National Endowment for the Arts (link).

Much, much more at Raw Story. And more to come soon (at Raw & The Rude Pundit, too).

Another article I have at Raw Story today focuses on The Rude Pundit's latest discoveries: More examples of Coulter 'borrowing liberally' for her Godless book.

Originally posted on June 14)

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/03/2006 12:36:00 PM

A few weeks ago, the Rude Pundit accused conservative columnist Ann Coulter of filching for a syndicated column (I should mention that I'm not at all crazy about the title of The Rude Pundit's post but, after all, he is rude: link) from a 1993 source, but the plagiarized material goes further back then that, and seems to be more than just the work of a lazy pundit. Rather, it is part and parcel of a long propaganda campaign waged by the American Family Association, and other conservative religious groups, to end public funding of the Arts.

Ann Coulter's article, "Thou Shalt Not Commit Religion," was distributed by Universal Press Syndicate and can be read on multiple places on the net including Human Events Online, a Conservative weekly, and townhall.com, and Yahoo News, and World Net Daily, and, of course, at Anncoulter.org. The crux of the article, which was written to protest the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that elaborate Ten Commandments displays in Kentucky courtrooms and outside the Texas Capitol violated the separation between church and state, contained “a small sampling of other speech that has been funded in whole or in part by taxpayers.”

To start with, an article written by Jeff Jacoby for The Boston Globe on January 24, 1995, "How The NEA Pollutes American Culture," included two similarly worded examples of “offensive” art (Jacoby seems pretty obsessed with this subject; the link contains a number of articles written on it):

Coulter: "...inserting a speculum into her vagina and inviting audience members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Jacoby: "...inserted a speculum into her vagina and called up audience members to examine her cervix with a flashlight..."

Coulter: "Christ submerged in a jar of urine."

Jacoby: "...photographs of a crucifix submerged in his urine..."

Going back even further, to August of 1992, a magazine called "Counterpoint" which attracted mostly student, faculty and alumni subscribers from the MIT/Wellesley college community, also used similar items. “Counterpoint” contained a list on page 10 that was included in a section entitled "From The Arena" (pdf file and html cache link).

Two of the items from T.R.P's post, which he attributed to a 1993 source appeared a year earlier in "Counterpoint":

Coulter: "A photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open titled to suggest the infant was available for oral sex."

Counterpoint: 3. (1984) "The title of a photo of a newborn infant suggested the infant was available for oral sex."

Coulter: "A show titled 'DEGENERATE WITH A CAPITAL D' featuring a display of the remains of the artist's own aborted baby."

Counterpoint: 7. (1990) "...a show called Degenerate With a Capital D...featuring the remains of the artist's own baby."

Here are two more that Coulter copy-and-pasted:

Coulter: "A novel depicting the sexual molestation of a group of 10 children in a pedophile's garage, including acts of bestiality, with the children commenting on how much they enjoyed the pedophilia."

Counterpoint: 4. (1985) "...a novel titled Saturday Night at San Marcos relates the sexual molestation of 10 children in a pedophile's garage, including acts of bestiality, and how much they enjoyed the pedophile's games."

Coulter: "A female performer inserting a speculum into her vagina and inviting audience members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Counterpoint: 6. (1989-1990) "Annie Sprinkle...inserting a speculum into her vagina, invites members on stage to view her cervix with a flashlight."

Out of seven examples listed in “Counterpoint,” Coulter directly regurgitated four of them. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ was number five on the list, but the word "submerged" wasn't employed as it was in Jeff Jacoby's article (Note: The conservative magazine “National Review” regularly runs a column entitle “The Arena” but this researcher was unable to track down the exact issue that it may have originated from).

Aside from the fact that all of Coulter’s examples are more than fifteen to thirty-five years old, what does this mean? Is this to imply that Ann Coulter cribbed her items from a magazine that came out in 1990?

In a nutshell, this is what they do.

Along with Jeff Gannon, this blog has outed - so far - four other former Talon News "journalists" who plagiarized from the mainstream media and conservative press releases to “write” their stories.

It seems very likely that instead of Googling, Ann Coulter received one such press release and worked off of it. There's a very good chance that she didn't think it was wrong to crib off of a press release, especially since after Jeff Gannon not many people batted an eyelash. It's also very likely that this list didn't originate at "Counterpoint," and that it's passed along through the years collecting newer examples along the way.

Not convinced?

Then have a gander at the "Phoenix Project Journal" (pdf file link and cache html link), which was published on September 25th, 2002, and sold for three bucks. On page 24 of the "Phoenix Project Journal" it is written that it has "been written to assist man to become aware of long-standing deceptions and other matters critical to his survival as a species at this time."

Turn to page 13 of the journal and notice that the exact same examples cited above from "Counterpoint" are tacked on to an essay entitled "All Will Receive According To Their Level of Understanding" which is attributed to Gyeorgos Ceres Hatonn and was published on April 13, 1990. The NEA section is qualified by the word "quoting" but no source is cited.

The first example was also used in The Rude Pundit's post:

Coulter: "A photo of a woman breastfeeding an infant, titled "Jesus Sucks.""

Phoenix Project: "...a collection of drawings which included one entitled Jesus Sucks depicting a mammoth woman breast-feeding an infant."

Coulter: "Essay describing then-New York Cardinal John O'Connor as a "fat cannibal from that house of walking swastikas up on Fifth Avenue.""

Phoenix Project: "...an exhibit in which angry homosexuals denounced Catholic John Cardinal O’Connor, calling him “a fat cannibal” and a “creep in black skirts”..."

And then there's also these repeated items:

Phoenix Project: "...Christ submerged in Serrano's urine."

Phoenix Project: "...Miss Sprinkle opened her vaginal canal with a gynecological tool known as a speculum, and invited the audience to the stage to inspect her cervix with a flashlight."

Note that drawings are confused with photos, and that an exhibition is referred to as an essay in Coulter's column.

The Rude Pundit reported that Flummery gave credit to Alice Goldfarb Marquis' "Art Lessons: Learning from the Rise and Fall of Public Arts Funding" published in 1995 as the source for the list. Sure enough, items from Coulter’s list appeared in Marquis’ book as well (Marquis, “Art Lessons”, pp. 212-214):

Marquis: “The show exhibited explicit photographs of group sex, of priests in sadomasochistic poses, and of an infant at the breast titled Jesus Sucks.”

Marquis: “Various performances in “Carnival Knowledge” included a lesbian inserting her foot into another lesbian’s vagina, an eighty-six-year-old woman boasting of sexual adventures with teenagers, and two women discussing fellatio and swallowing human semen.”

Marquis: “In 1985, Thunder’s Mouth Press received $25,000 to publish experimental novels, including Saturday Night at San Marcos, which described a pedophile molesting ten children in his garage and the victims’ pleasure in sex games.”

Marquis: “Johanna Went was funded in 1983, 1985, and 1987 for a series of performances with props such as dildos, giant bloody tampons, and three-foot turds.”

“The Pro-Life Encyclopedia” published in 1995 also incorporates the same reoccurring examples of “offensive art;” most of which can be found in Chapter 136 which sports the catchy title, “The Mass Media: Soft-Core Porn Peddlers” (link).

The entire propaganda campaign seems to derive from an assault on the National Endowment for the Arts mounted by Reverend Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association starting in 1989. Soon after Wildmon held a few press conferences against the funding of works from artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, former Senator Jesse Helms (Rep. N. Carolina) inserted the following language into an amendment which sailed through the Senate but was blocked in the House (link):

“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated pursuant to this Act may be used to promote, discriminate, or produce materials that are obscene or that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual or excretory activities or organs, including but not limited to obscene depictions of sadomasochism, homo-eroticism, the sexual exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sexual intercourse.”

In 1990, the American Family Associated purchased advertisement space in a number of newspapers, including USA Today on March 28^th, 1990 and The Washington Times on February 13^th, 1990, which included most of the aforementioned “offensive” art samplings, as detailed in the press.

This line was attributed to the now defunct New York City Tribune on March 2^nd, 1984 (the fomer editor of the Tribune, Christopher Ruddy, later founded the conservative Newsmax Website and the former editor-in-chief, Robert Morton, is behind WorldTribune.com):

N.Y.C. Tribune: “In New York, NEA funds helped pay for an exhibit which included booklets depicting one woman inserting an object into another, a photo album of group sex, a collection of crude drawings including one titled “Jesus S----” in which a woman is breast-feeding an infant. Another photo is of a man asking, “Is it a sin to ---- a priest?”

Earlier, when noted that Coulter may not realize that reusing these items and changing very little to the sentence structures constituted theft, it shouldn’t be misunderstood that this exonerates her. Because, to this writer, copying from press releases and passing it off as your own work without giving credit – and, especially, profiting from it - is propagandistic plagiarism at its worst.

And since Jeff Jacoby's Boston Globe article wasn't published until 1994, the record shows that he plagiarized the two examples cited, and other ones that have appeared elsewhere using almost precisely the same language, as well.

Congratulations, Jeff Gannon. You're not alone. You now have a recent cover girl for Time Magazine and a journalist from the Boston Globe to share in your infamy.

Although, so far, there doesn't appear to be any pornographic Websites that feature Ann Coulter in all of her glory out there waiting to be discovered by some enterprising blogger. You only get so lucky when it comes to these fake journalists.

Written by Ron Brynaert, in conjunction with The Raw Story.

(Special Thanks to The Rude Pundit for catching Coulter in the first place, The Raw Story for linking to The Rude Pundit's story, my buddy, Tas from the kick-ass Loaded Mouth blog for helping me do a little digging, and the staff at the 5 New York Public Libraries that it took to visit to research this story.)

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(Originally posted on July 20, 2005)

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 7/03/2006 03:48:00 AM