Jeb defends hire of accused plagarist and sexual harasser.

[madfloridian]

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050112/NEWS/501120347/0/FRONTPAGE

SNIP..."TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday defended hiring a former newspaper editor who left his job in November amid public allegations of plagiarism and sexual harassment.

Bush said the allegations against Lloyd Brown, 65, "were not quite accurate" and said he was "thankful for the fact that (Brown) is willing to serve here in state government. Brown did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Bush was in Washington, D.C., last week when it was reported that his office had hired Brown as a staff writer Dec. 20 at an annual salary of $80,000. In that post, Brown will write speeches, letters to the editor and other material for the governor.

Brown retired from his position as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville on Nov. 2 after a newspaper review found instances of plagiarism in editorials he had written. Brown said any similarities between editorials he wrote and other published material were coincidental.

Brown had worked at the paper for more than 40 years, including 11-plus years as editorial page editor where he created a staunchly conservative page of viewpoints that left the Times-Union nearly alone among the state's major papers in endorsing Bush's gubernatorial candidacy in 1994.

The plagiarism review came after a former Times-Union editorial writer, Billee Bussard, wrote a lengthy article in Folio Weekly, a Jacksonville weekly newspaper. In the October article, titled "Porn, Hypocrisy, Plagiarism: The Dark Side of Jacksonville's Daily," Bussard claimed Brown viewed Internet pornography in the paper's office beginning in 1995."