Plagiarism charges fly in Bush memoir controversy

[sabra]

Source: CS Monitor

Did George W. Bush lift passages from elsewhere in composing his memoir "Decision Points"?

Former president George W. Bush's memoir "Decision Points" is "a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates," says Ryan Grim in a piece for the Huffington Post. It's hardly the first time that a politician-author has been accused of churning out a compendium of less-than-fresh material.

But these charges ago a bit beyond the ordinary. Grim says that Bush "lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections," borrowing from "nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time." What it adds up to for Grim is an indictment of Bush's character: "He's too lazy to write his own memoir," Grim charges.

To substantiate his claims, Grim offers a list of Bush "borrowings" from sources such as journalist Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," a piece by Ahmed Rashid in the The New York Review of Books, a Washington Post interview with John McCain, and the memoir "American Soldier" by Gen. Tommy Franks.

How significant are these borrowings? How you see the issue may depend on your view of Bush himself. While many in the press – in the US and beyond – seem to view the similarities between Bush's words and those of others as at least significant enough to report on, there are of course Bush supporters who insist that it is inevitable, and not even very surprising given the very public nature of the material, that Bush would – intentionally or unintentionally – repeat some of the stories also told by his advisers.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/1115/Plagiarism-charges-fly-in-Bush-memoir-controversy

[madinmaryland]

1. "He's too lazy to write his own memoir" The pretty well sums up *.

[mimitabby]

7. yes!!

[bongbong]

8. More accurately....

"He's too drunk, 24x7, to write his own memoirs"

[Qutzupalotl]

15. Letterman had a good observation about W's memoirs.

It was something like, "I'll read them when he reads them."

[L. Coyote]

17. Ding, Ding!! Hoot, Hoot!!

[vanbean]

26. While that is funny, did anyone seriously think he wrote the book himself?

[jaksavage]

11. As if he wrote it.

I am sure he had help and his helper "researched" then compiled the book.
Bush said,"yup"

[madrchsod]

2. huffington was on this last friday...

they were offering credit to anyone who found more errors or lies. he`d be thrown out of college if he tried to pass this shit off as non fiction.

[liberal N proud]

3. Why am not surprised?

These are hardened war criminals a little thing like borrowing someone else's content is a minor thing.

Maybe for this someone will pay!

[naaman fletcher]

4. Gawker dismantled this pretty well

all of the "plagerism" were direct quotes. That is, the earlier books quoted bush as saying something in a meeting, and bush's own book has him -surprise surprise, saying the same thing!

Another example of us wasting our time on phony issues where there are plenty of real ones


http://gawker.com/5688749/did-george-w-bush-plagiarize-his-memoir

He's an idiot, so probably. The Huffington Post's Ryan Grimm has identified several passages in Bush's new book Decision Points that he says are "lifted" from some of his advisers' books.

It would be kind of tough for Bush, whose book recounts episodes that have already been described repeatedly in a wide variety of books, magazines, and newspapers, to tell the stories in Decision Points without revisiting anecdotes that others have already told. And Grim basically raps him for "lifting" stories in which Bush was a player from people, like Gen. Tommy Franks and Bob Woodward, who'd already told them.

For instance, Bush's account of his remarks at a meeting in the situation room match up suspiciously, in Grim's view, with Woodward's account of the same meeting in Bush at War.

Bush:

At a National Security Council meeting the next morning, I said, 'just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?' I went around the table and asked every member of the room.
Woodward:

The next morning, Bush arrived at the White House Situation Room for the NSC meeting…'I just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?' said.
Well, what if that's what he actually said? How is Bush supposed to communicate the events of that meeting? "As Bob Woodward first reported in Bush at War, I then said...."

It is clear from some of Grim's examples that Bush relied on other people's books for direct quotes of some conversations. Gen. Tommy Franks' recollection, for instance, of one national security team meeting included quotes from both Bush and Franks that are repeated identically in Decision Points. Not the narrative, mind you, but the quotes. It certainly seems that, in the course of putting the book together, Bush's researchers checked the quotes against Franks' book and adjusted them to match, on the presumption that Franks' account was accurate.

But what's wrong with that? Again, is Bush supposed to credit someone else for capturing his own words? It seems like small beer.

But again, he's an idiot, so let's just say he plagiarized the damn thing. He's done worse.

[dragonlady]

13. Does Bush's book cite the other works for the quotes?

If he "relied on other people's books for direct quotes," he should have put a footnote after each quote and the footnote would provide the source from which he took it. If he had his own sources, like minutes of a meeting or a diary, he could have cited them, but apparently he didn't have anything like that, or was too lazy to look it up.

[naaman fletcher]

14. I dont know

but I still don't think it's a big deal. Let's say you and I had a conversation three years ago where I said "Hi, how are you today"? You later wrote in your book that I said at our meeting "Hi, how are you today?"

Let's say two years later I write a book and relate that in our conversation I said "Hi, how are you today".

what that be evidence that I plagerized?

Of course not. Would I have to cite you? Of course not. The fact that two people remember the same conversation ought to be a good sign that what is being reported is accurate.

[mediaman007]

5. Do you think that he wrote his own paper for his MBA at Harvard?

High school and middle school kids get failing grades for plagiarism. Bush* just gets to flaunt it.

[Kingofalldems]

6. He got a Gentleman's C

[Blue Owl]

9. The Decider's intellect is a perpetual mulligan

In nature and in the real world, second chances don't come so easy.

[BetsysGhost]

10. hell this doesn't surprise me

he stole a bunch of ideas from Hitler.

[EC]

12. This is likely how he did his research papers too or he paid

someone to write them for him...anyway legally nothing - unless one of the liftees sues...but quotes from him are hardly lifting...

[L. Coyote]

16. Did he hire a ghost writer who is a plagiarist?

I'm not assuming the Scrub wrote anything at all. Maybe he talked for his writer.

[Submariner]

20. I think Karen Hughes is his ghost writer

she's the fascist who, with Rove, purged the nasty stuff out of Dumbya's Tx air national guard records (skipped mandatory flight fitness physical, thus drug test, so was dropped from flight status, forever).

[burnsei sensei]

18. I don't think Bush is capable of doing any better than this.

The book speaks for him and for itself.
He's just not that bright a man.

[LiberalFighter]

19. Wouldn't he have had to had read those sources first?

Which would mean that he didn't write the book.

[Xipe Totec]

21. I'll wait for the movie - Derision Points nt

[NYMdaveNYI]

22. Plagiarism is the LEAST of this man’s crimes...

:fistbump:

[Stuart G]

28. Very good point..and how true..............nt

[jmowreader]

23. He learned well from his political inspiration

IIRC, Ronald Reagan liked to discuss "things that happened to him" that were actually plots in movies he was in.

[sonias]

24. He was born to cheat

Comes naturally to him.

:puke:

[rasputin1952]

25. For an individual that is so stupid...

he can't pull up a pair of socks w/o audio instructions playing next to the bed, I'd be surprised if anything in that book isn't plagiarized.

[Stuart G]

27. Perhaps this will get more traction...Christian Science Monitor is/was

very well respected..Perhaps some more mainstream media will pick this up and someone ask this so called author...about these little details...and probably more to come..

[Rex]

29. The Americans that supported Bush/Cheney need to step out of an

airlock...I'll wait.