Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Earlier today I wrote about this article in The Weekly Standard, which argues that President Bush's choices for the Medal of Freedom are excellent while Bill Clinton's were unspeakably icky. The folks at Sadly, No! noticed something about the article that I overlooked: It's essentially plagiarized -- taken from this White House press release, with a bit of anti-Democrat nastiness tacked on. When I wrote about the Standard article, it included no acknowledgment of the plagiarism; now the cribbing is acknowledged. Hey -- I thought all right-wing journalists were scrupulously honest, unlike those fact-inventing, affirmative-action-addled liberal amoralist decadents at The New York Times. What gives?

I'd also like to note, by the way, that the Standard article, after praising Bush's Medal of Freedom choices, reproduces the entire 2003 list -- except for the first two names. Why would those honorees be omitted? The first is an esteemed American professor and author. Could the Standard have left him out because his name is Jacques Barzun and he was born in (ick!) France? (Note: Professor Barzun, a nonagenarian, has lived in the U.S. for the last 84 years.) And was the second honoree omitted by the Standard because it's Julia Child -- the French Chef?

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