White House Jesus-Freak-In-Chief Caught Plagiarizing

He’s an administration official you’ve probably never heard of.  He’s in charge of placating the religious nutjobs that think Bush will have them raptured up any day now.  And now, he joins the ranks of conservative copycats like Ann Coulter and Ben “Box Turtle” Domenech.  Nancy Nall:

I feel bad about what I’m going to do here.

I’ve had a lot of fun at Tim Goeglein’s expense over the last few months. Mean-spirited fun, certainly, but my problem with him has always been one of personal taste. In his columns for The News-Sentinel, my old newspaper, he personifies a certain sort of apple-cheeked Hoosier drippiness, which undoubtedly masks a core of white-hot ambition. I mean, he worked at the right hand of Karl Rove, and remains in the White House. But while he works in the West Wing, he chooses to write awful, turgid essays on the wonders of Hoagy Carmichael, deceased operatic composers and his parents’ marriage.

See Nancy.  See Nancy bust Timmy.  See Nancy bust Timmy after the jump.

This is so good.

My, my, my. Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.

Not an accidental or delicate one, either. The piece (Tim’s) goes on:

It can hardly be challenged that the United States of America is part of the narrative of European history. Europe is overwhelmingly the source, and some parts of Europe more than others: Our language, literature, legal tradition, political arrangements derive, demonstrably, from England. This Britain-America connection is central.

Check out the corresponding paragraph from a 10-year-old issue of the Dartmouth Review:

It can scarcely be challenged that the United States is part of the narrative of European history. It owes little or nothing to Confucius or Laotse or to Chief Shaka or to the Aztecs. At the margin it owes a bit to the American Indians, but not a great deal - corn, tobacco, some legendary material. But Europe is overwhelmingly the source. And some parts of Europe more than others: Our language, legal tradition, political arrangements derive, and demonstrably so, from England.

Looks like Tim cleaned it up by taking out all the references to brown people.  Let’s see what else we’ve got.  Tim:

There have been many ways of answering the question: What is Europe? A handy way to think of the matter is the paradigm of “Athens” and “Jerusalem.” In this paradigm, those terms designate both the two cities we have all heard of but also two kinds of mind. The tradition designated “Athens” is associated with philosophy and with critical exercise of mind, with reason. The tradition associated with “Jerusalem” is associated with monotheism, with faith.

Dartmouth guy:

There have been many ways of answering the question, “What is Europe?” But a handy way to think of the matter is the paradigm of “Athens” and “Jerusalem.” In this paradigm, those terms designate both the two cities we have all heard of, and also two kinds of mind.

Well, Tim’s has more words, so at least he wrote some of it.

In closing, let me say something that requires no attribution:

Plagiarize,
Let no one else’s work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don’t shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please ‘research’.

Copycat (Nancy Nall via Atrios)

Comments

[tata]

Meow meow douchebag meow meow stolen meow not even good writing meow?

Meow what the fuck?

[actor212]

All due respect but...really...if she had busted him plagiarizing a White House report on somethingorother and passing it off as his own prediction, that might be a story.

This is kind of silly. This is change you can xerox....

[mandt]

"he personifies a certain sort of apple-cheeked Hoosier drippiness," ---yeah, rotten to the Rovian core.