And Speaking Of Plagiarism…

by

by hilzoy

Ben Domenech has company:

“THE career of President Vladimir Putin of Russia was built at least in part on a lie, according to US researchers. A new study of an economics
thesis written by Putin in the mid-1990s has revealed that large chunks of it were copied from an American text.
Putin was labelled a plagiarist yesterday after a pair of researchers at the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC think tank, established that the Russian president’s academic credentials were based on a dissertation he had lifted in part verbatim from the Russian translation of a management study written by two professors at the University of Pittsburgh in 1978.

According to the Kremlin’s official biography, Putin, 53, obtained a PhD in economics from the St Petersburg Mining Institute in 1997. But the US researchers also established that his thesis was for a lesser degree that would not have entitled him to a full doctorate.

The embarrassing revelation that Putin, a former KGB agent, may have cheated and lied about his qualifications follows a long search by US scholars for evidence of the president’s academic prowess. A copy of the thesis was eventually located in the electronic files of a Moscow technical library.

According to Clifford G Gaddy, a senior fellow at Brookings, 16 of the 20 pages that open a key section of Putin’s work were copied either word for word or with minute alterations from a management study, Strategic Planning and Policy, written by US professors William King and David Cleland. The study was translated into Russian by a KGB-
related institute in the early 1990s.

The Washington Times reported yesterday that six diagrams and tables from the 218-page thesis also appeared to “mimic” similar charts in
the US work. The newspaper quoted Gaddy as saying: “There’s no question in my mind that this would be plagiarism.” (…)

While plagiarism has come to be regarded in America as a fatal blot on any US politician’s copybook — Senator Joe Biden has never recovered from allegations that he stole sections of a 1988 speech by Neil Kinnock, the former Labour leader — the issue is not taken especially seriously in Russia, which is second only to China as a producer of pirated copyright goods.”

Nice snark at the end. I suspect nothing will come of it, since, to put it tactfully, honesty does not seem to be a make-or-break issue for Russian politicians. Still, it’s always good to have a clearer sense of what President Bush saw when he looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul.

28 thoughts on “And Speaking Of Plagiarism…”

  1. …Putin, a former KGB agent, may have cheated and lied….
    Shock horror! There was I, innocently assuming that he never did anything worse than pulling some poor bastard’s fingernails out.

  2. I’m not interested enough to go find that paper and read it, but I do wonder what it said about “Strategic Planning and Policy,” particularly if it had any conclusions relevant to Soviet planning and policy.
    And, as with any plagiarism, I wonder if the stolen work Putin presented as his own was something he actually: a) understood; and b) agreed with.

  3. I always thought that cheating and lying was considered a necessary trait to be successful in the KGB.

  4. Given the new allegations that Russian spies passed intelligence on our Iraq war operations to Saddam, the plagiarism issue seems like rather small potatoes by comparison…

  5. Please. This is torture, no? The Washington Times? Mere sarcasm then? Just happened to discover Putin’s channel now? Where were those Russian translators when we needed them 30yrs ago? Who exactly are they now? Can we take a quick look at their credentials and affliations?
    “Seems like small potatoes”. No, fish. Damn stinking, rotten fish, reminding us that W’s records could not even be located.

  7. OT? But this is what I think of Big Media. I can come with examples almost any given hour.
    Kilmer on Sunday Talk Shows at RedState …Decent but long, One of the things I read at RS to get perspective.
    “Also on FNS, Secretary Rice said that if the Iraqis progressed militarily and politically, it was “highly likely” that we would see a drawdown in troops stationed there by the end of the year. This was, she added, contingent on the military situation. On CBS’s FTN, guest host Gloria Borger confronted National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley with what she said was Rece’s assertion that she expected to drawdown troops. Period. Hadley reacted by giving an answer similar to the one Secretary Rice actually gave to Chris Wallace.” …Kilmer
    Gloria Borger:Deliberate mistatement of Rice’s words? Check. Intending to create trouble or damage or hurt i.e. malice? Check.
    Libel? Check. Hard to actually prove? I am not sure, if Borger watched the tape we can fairly assume she changed the meaning for a purpose, and that I can think of no benevolent purpose. She made a mistake? Misheard? If I had the resources, I would have this stuff in court every day. Let a jury decide. This what the media do, this is what they are. It is completely non-partisan and non-biased.
    Most of Big Media is worse than Domenech every single day.

  8. Let me be clear. Any excerpting from say a two hour speech is always a distortion (which is why the blogs, with links, are superior). What is chosen as an excerpt is a deliberate purposeful decision. The purpose of the excerpting is usually to create controversy which demonstrates malice.
    The right says the “good news” is not reported from Iraq? The left says the media is glossing over the bad situation in Iraq? Both say it is done with bad intentions? They are both correct. The nature of news, where editorial decisions are ever in play, in Big Media is lies with bad intent.

  12. “The nature of news, where editorial decisions are ever in play, in Big Media is lies with bad intent.”
    This is true, I think, Bob, only if “lies with bad intent” has been and continues to be demonstrably more lucrative than any alternative.
    I firmly believe these decisions are ultimately about nothing but money.

  14. To modify an old Woody Allen joke, it’s a good thing Bush and Putin weren’t taking a philosophy or theology class together in college, because one might have cheated by looking into the other’s soul.

  15. Vladimir Putin may be a plagiarist. But he’s also running Russia, a world power with many nukes, a more-or-less functioning secret police, and fantabulous amounts of petroleum under his control.
    Who’s going to hold him to account? Thanks, but I’m busy this decade.

  17. “I’m free.”
    I understand, in this one, the smart money’s on Farber…
    Or as John McClain so eloquently put it to Hans Gruber:
    “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

  18. “I understand, in this one, the smart money’s on Farber…”
    Small point: I kinda need something approximating the full powers of the United States government at my command to get a decent start on the job.
    I don’t think an excess of nagging comments on Putin’s blog will do the job, no matter how good I might be at that.

  20. “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”
    In keeping with the motif, I was so hoping you were gonna say “motherfarber”. (:

  21. “Small point: I kinda need something approximating the full powers of the United States government at my command to get a decent start on the job.”
    Are you even old enough to run for prez yet? Be that as it may, if you promise to try to hold Blair accountable too I’ll vote for you.(Or against you if you’re feeling superstitious: I’ve voted in five presidential elections. The candidate I voted for one in only one of those elections.)

  22. “Are you even old enough to run for prez yet?”
    I’m 47 (as of last November 5th; hurrah for Guy Fawkes). But, don’t worry, I’m very childish, er, child-like. But I wasn’t announcing my campaign for office. I will accept delegated powers. And cookies.
    I’ll also accept the power to grant lordships and knighthoods, in return for cash, if delegated to me by proper authority. Or even improper authority; let’s not violate precedent.

  23. Anarch: Oh, the price of being un-clever!
    ” The candidate I voted for one in only one of those elections.”
    That’s adorable.
    What would you call that?
    A mala-homophone-apropism?

  25. “That’s adorable.
    What would you call that?
    A mala-homophone-apropism?”
    Mala-homophone-apropism. I like it. Alas, what I’d really call it is poor editing. Nonexistent editing, if one wants to get technical about it. One of those ones should be won, of course. But I’m glad it amused you at least.

  26. “One of those ones should be won, of course.”
    Of course it should, Dianne. And I new you new it should.
    (And it did amuse me, but only because I’m not that busy right now and have always been easily amused… just ask hilzoy…
    on the other hand, her lips are probably sealed…)

  27. “on the other hand, her lips are probably sealed…”
    Discretion is such a boring virtue.
    But vices are usually less boring than virtues; or are they? (I momentarily considered writing “are always,” but instantly realized that that was wrong; sloth, in fact, is a pretty boring vice. And I should know.)

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