Montana US (D) senator's thesis appears to plagiarize

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana Sen. John Walsh's thesis written to earn a master's degree from the U.S. Army War College contains unattributed passages taken word-for-word from previously published papers.

The Democrat is running against Republican Rep. Steve Daines to keep the seat Walsh was appointed to in February when Max Baucus resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China.

The apparent plagiarism in Walsh's 2007 thesis, titled "The Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy," was first reported by The New York Times in a story posted online Wednesday afternoon. Walsh submitted the paper to earn his Master of Strategic Studies degree nearly two years after he returned from Iraq and about a year before he became Montana's adjutant general overseeing the state's National Guard and Department of Military Affairs.

Walsh's campaign said the senator did not intend to plagiarize and that he would speak to The Associated Press later Wednesday.

FULL story at link



FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2014, file photo, Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., right, and his son Michael leave the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, after a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony with Vice President Joe Biden. Walsh's thesis written for the U.S. Army War College contains unattributed passages that appear to be taken word-for-word from previously published papers. The Democrat is running to keep the seat he was appointed to in February. Walsh faces Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Daines on Nov. 4. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File)



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140723/us-senator-montana-plagiarism-5f10f0a4c8.html

---

crap.

[elleng]

1. Yup.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1062225

crap.

[alp227]

2. I hope Allison Grimes, Michelle Nunn, even Travis Childers offset a possible loss by Walsh. nt

[tabasco]

3. Admit you fucked up, Senator.

Don't try to bullshit people and maybe you'll survive the scandal.

[devils chaplain]

4. Not to be overly negative, but...

He wasn't really expected to win anyway.

[OldRedneck]

5. Damn!!!

I'm a 1991 grad of the US Army War College (Carlisle, PA); 1978 grad of Command and General Staff College (Fort Leavenworth, KS); was faculty member at C&GSC 1983-1986.

These and every other Army school take a VERY dim view of plagiarism. When I was on the C&GSC faculty, one of the guys for whom I was a faculty adviser lifted about 10 percent of his thesis from an earlier thesis -- we failed him on the thesis, dropped him from the course, and he eventually resigned from the Army.

I hate the thought of losing a Senate seat because of something like this but if we Democrats are to claim that we are not the same as Republicans, we gotta start somewhere.

[OldRedneck]

6. Furthermore . . .

A guy with whom I served in Vietnam was a 1989 War College grad. Someone read his thesis carefully in 1991 and found several plagiarized passages. He admitted it, was relieved of the assignment he was in, removed from promotion list to brigadier general, his name was removed from the bronze plaque with the names of 1989 graduates, and he was allowed to retire from the Army.

[blackspade]

12. That is a bit harsh.

It is not hard to miss unattributed passages in a thesis.
The vast majority of cases come down to simple oversight due to lack of sleep and stress.
Not to say that it shouldn't be called out, but the above seems overly harsh for a small number of passages.
Missing references are not uncommon on any sort of research paper.

[Louisiana1976]

7. What a dumb thing to do. This will cause him to lose the election.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

10. And he'll probably be beaten by a tea partier who can barely read and write. n/m

[whistler162]

8. Not good and a lot bigger than

Joe Biden's law school plagiarizing problem - http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/08/26/the-biden-plagiarism-scandal/

[sadoldgirl]

9. Stupid and sad n/t

[blackspade]

11. Not good.

But again, this will only derail his run because he is a Democrat.
It would be fine with the M$M if he was GOP.
ex Rand Paul....

[rpannier]

13. He could drop out

Maybe then Brian would run

[okasha]

14. Bone stupid, yes.

But where was his thesis director? Was his whole committee asleep on the job? This should have been caught when he turned in his drafts.

[enlightenment]

15. He is responsible for his work.

Are you suggesting that his committee is responsible?

He intentionally - despite all his protestations otherwise - chose to steal the words and ideas of others. It is HIS responsibility and no one else.

[okasha]

16. I'm suggesting that his committee should have caught it and dealt with itat the timd.

Evidently, they were lax.

[enlightenment]

17. I am suggesting that as an adult

completing graduate level course work, his committee is not responsible for ensuring that he didn't cheat.

He is responsible.

[okasha]

18. I didn't say he wasn't responsible.

My thesis committee caught a single grammar error in 130 pages, and I corrected it before final submission. This guy's cheating should have been caught at the same level. He's responsible for the cheating, His director and committee are at least in part responsible for his getting away with it.

[enlightenment]

19. I disagree.

They do not bear responsibility for his actions. Comparing a grammatical error to plagiarism is really apples and oranges; especially when it is clear that he was very careful about this "unintentional" cheating, by utilizing the footnotes of the original authors.

No committee should be expected to "know" that material has been lifted from a paper about a topic that may or may not be familiar to them. That would require that they recognize passages from all the scholarship on the topic. I don't know about you, but I don't have a eidetic memory, so I probably wouldn't see a lifted passage from a work I perhaps had never read - particularly if it carries citation that looks valid.

This was caught because somebody was looking for dirt and they found it in spade loads, but that doesn't mean his committee should have caught it.

He didn't plagiarize the entire thesis - he lifted about a quarter of it, and he did it carefully and toward the end (including his conclusion, which is particularly egregious). That means that his committee read the first three-quarters of his work without any triggers to alert them to what would come. Can you honestly say that you would be thinking "oh, he might start plagiarizing on page 180; I'd better be especially vigilant" after reading a thesis that to that point was passing the smell test?

The fact that his committee didn't catch his theft points more to his expertise in disguising it - not their lack of concern about it.

If it shakes out that the faculty at the War College have a habit of letting dubious work pass, I'll be the first to admit that they were lax - but for now, I'm sticking with the idea that their failing was that they believed they were dealing with an officer who understood honesty and integrity.

[madville]

20. War college to hold hearing later in August

They announced today they will hold an official review later in August and within 10 days of that make a determination on the plagiarism and the status of his degree.

They said of the eight degrees that have ever been revoked, six were for plagiarism.

[Major Hogwash]

21. I don't think it will matter much.

Walsh said that it was due to PTSD.