Trump aide Monica Crowley plagiarized thousands of words in Ph.D. dissertation

[brooklynite]

CNN:

Conservative commentator Monica Crowley, who is slated to serve in a top national security communications role in Donald Trump's presidential administration, plagiarized thousands of words of her 2000 dissertation for her Columbia University Ph.D., a CNN KFile review has found.

On Monday, Politico reported that it found more than a dozen examples of plagiarism in Crowley's Ph.D. dissertation. CNN's KFile has found nearly 40 lengthy instances of Crowley lifting paragraphs from numerous sources, including several scholarly texts, the Associated Press, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The revelation comes on the heels of another CNN KFile investigation, which found more than 50 instances of plagiarism in Crowley's 2012 book, "What The (Bleep) Just Happened." On Tuesday, the book's publisher, HarperCollins, announced that it would stop selling the book until "the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material."

Crowley's first plagiarism scandal came in 1999, the year before she submitted her dissertation. After The New York Times reported a reader found that a column she wrote in the Wall Street Journal strongly resembled a 1988 article in the neoconservative magazine Commentary, a Journal editor said that the paper would not have published her piece if it had known of the parallels. Crowley denied the charge but acknowledged that the language is similar.

The linked article contains more than 30 verbatim examples.

[H2O Man]

1. recommended

[yeoman6987]

2. Isn't Columbia supposed to check for plagerism before awarding the phd?

Heck every one of my papers went through the plagerism software. I suppose there my not have been that type of thing when she was getting her phd but I think her professors have a lot to answer for. It's one thing a sentence but thousands of words is not looking good for Columbia at all.

[hunter]

3. Anti-plagiarism software tools were not commonly used in 2000...

... and when they were the databases were nowhere near as large as they are now.

[Kingofalldems]

8. Wait yeoman6987--You are blaming Columbia for the cheating of a lying republican?

'Not looking good for Columbia' my ass. Reads like Trumplike deflection from here. Crowley is guilty.

[LanternWaste]

10. Or its critics who dramatically lack relevant information of the process then and now...

"not looking good for Columbia at all."

Or its critics who dramatically lack relevant information of the process then and now. Your narrative is showing again...

[yeoman6987]

11. I don't care. What I'm saying is relevant

I don't care one way of the other for the woman. I'm just saying the school failed to see the plagerism. That you know is true.

[Hortensis]

4. Couldn't catch out a more deserving liar and cheat.

Except for her collaborator HarperCollins, who undoubtedly also discovered this before it published her 2012 book--and published it anyway. There're big markets for and big money in hate tomes, which by their nature are produced by dishonorable people.

"My old boss, former president Richard Nixon, what he did was child’s play compared to the range of corruption and collusion that we have seen through this administration! (Obama's)

Pretty much every day has been an impeachable offense! Every day of the four years that Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, she was leveraging her public office to enrich herself and empower herself and her family’s foundation!"

Monica Crowley

[hunter]

6. The "big markets" are often Republican Party operatives who buy these books by the truckload...

... to give away, or simply dump.

I remember various Ronald Reagan Republican events I covered as a college reporter where everybody who attended got a free book or two. Sometimes the books were forced upon attendees by the same sorts who hand out fliers for escort services in Las Vegas. None of these books aged well.

I especially remember an event where one of the Reagan Administration's pet worm economists spoke. I don't remember who he was, but he was very enthusiastic about trickle down economics, the Laffer Curve, and all the other bullshit Republican economic theories. And of course he was giving away books. He had hundreds of books, more than enough for the few dozen people who showed up to hear him speak. He offered to autograph his own book after his lecture and maybe six people took him up on the offer.

So yeah, HarperCollins simply didn't give a damn. It's just business, riding yet another tsunami of ignorance..

[Hortensis]

7. Reminds me of Ann Coulter's purchasing her way

onto the best-sellers' lists. Still, enough of those who can always be fooled do buy the books written just for them to make it lucrative.

I also remember first day of microeconomics 101, the very first thing the professor told us all was to turn to a page in our brand-new textbook and draw a line completely through the definition of the Laffer curve. It was only an untried theory, not even a huge Reagan failure yet, when it was inserted into texts to corrupt innocent young minds. That was the only item he had us delete, though, making me wonder now through what machination it got in there.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Deplorable behavior.

[Jim Lane]

9. As a Wikipedia editor, I note that her book plagiarized Wikipedia.

From this article on CNN's website:

Crowley, page 190

It required additional contributions by state
and local government workers to their health care
plans and pensions, amounting to about an 8
percent decrease in take-home pay.

Wikipedia

The bill requires additional contributions by
state and local government workers to their health
care plans and pensions, amounting to roughly an
8% decrease in the average government worker's take
home pay.

Contrary to what some people think, Wikipedia content is copyrighted. It's available under an extremely permissive license (CC-BY-SA), but you do have to give proper attribution.

As it happens, Wikipedia has been plagiarized before. I know about the instance involving material I wrote about Democratic Party superdelegates:

Plagiarist

Superdelegates -- delegates to the National Democratic Convention --are not selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, but rather based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials. They are free to choose the candidate they like.

Wikipedia

The convention delegates who are not superdelegates are selected as a result of party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, in which voters express their preference among the contenders for the party’s nomination for President of the United States. ... By contrast, the superdelegates are seated based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials. They are free to support any candidate for the nomination, although many of them have publicly announced endorsements.

I mention this because the plagiarist in this instance was someone writing for, of all places, CNN. (Preserved thanks to the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20080219122752/http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/17/2008.dems/index.html ) Not that I've been harboring a grudge for years or anything....