Universal Press Syndicate, the company that syndicates Ann Coulter’s opinion columns to about 100 newspapers, announced that they will investigate allegations that Coulter plagiarized material for her columns (see the story in Editor & Publisher).
Surely when higher profile people get caught plagiarizing, it calls attention to the problem. Do these reports serve as any kind of warning, as any deterrent to kids who are tempted to do the same thing? (I am writing a syllabus for a late summer term class at a local university; the school asks that we include language in the syllabus that notes plagiarism is a major academic sin, and is grounds for dismissal. I wonder whether similar standards are imposed in the contracts syndicates give opinion writers? Should not the Coulters of the world be held to standards as high as any college freshman?)
Historians who have been snagged in the plagiarism net in recent years include outstanding, Pulitzer Prize-winners like Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose, both of whom had relied on notes from paid researchers, and both of whom quickly apologized and took steps to tighten their attribution and research methods.
Ann Coulter is not in the same league as Ambrose or Goodwin in terms of the quality of her work or the accuracy of her reporting. Were I to bet, I’d bet she will not quickly offer apologies or corrections, nor quickly mend her ways, but that is my experience from inside conservative politics (I staffed the Senate conservative side and had an appointment in the Reagan administration). Of course, I hope I am wrong.
Coulter’s tactics in writing about science do not lend foundation for that hope. Her recent book, to which I will not link, offers three chapters of grotesque inaccuracy about biology and especially evolution theory. She has lifted wholesale sections of a notoriously inaccurate book published by intelligent design harpy Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution. P. Z. Myers’ blog, Pharyngula, is a good place to start on the science inaccuracies, with his post today.
The Fillmore’s Bathtub Challenge: Can you cite any significant claim from any of Coulter’s books that are accurate and can be verified? We should all be from Missouri on this issue. Comments are open.
Coda: Goodwin’s latest book is a fine resource for college and Texas high school history classes: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. I recommend it.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
i\’m a ford man all the way!
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Ed, yes, I have read her LBJ book, but it was a while ago. Unfortunately, I found his personality so repellent I have no desire to reread it, nor any of the other excellent LBJ bios ;)
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Gentlewoman, may I recommend you get other books by Goodwin? Her story of her own childhood, with her father, and the Brooklyn Dodgers, has some wonderful passages. Her work on LBJ offers great insights as well — she was the official inside historian, as Ambrose was Eisenhower’s inside guy.
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I agree, Goodwin’s latest book is brilliant! I read it compulsively, had to remind myself to stop to eat, sleep, and feed cats. My brother has it now, he will get more out of the War parts than I did, but I was more interested in the politics and personalities. I knew very little of the other men who were in the race for the Republican nomination, the ones who ended up in the Cabinet. It was fascinating! And Lincoln himself became so real to me, in a way he never did in other histories and biographies.
I just thought she did an incredible job. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that made me feel so strongly the real tragedy of what this country lost when Lincoln was killed. I can’t even wrap my mind around how different a nation we would be if he had lived.
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Russell,
Thank you. I’ve used your redesigned banner already. Is that type of design what you do professionally?
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Cool stuff. I look forward to checking back daily to see what you’ve put up.
By the way, I took the liberty of redoing your banner. It’s here…
If you like it, please use it for no cost (a small shoutout might be nice).
I’m always up for helping out new blogs.
Thanks.
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