For those who don’t remember, Scott Brown was caught plagiarizing from Elizabeth Dole back in October. At the time he brushed it off as an “oversight”.
But there he goes again: his issues page contains text which appears to be lifted from another North Carolinian, a State Rep by the name of Earline Parmon, currently running for State Senate.
She uses the shared text on her current “about” page, and also used it in a candidate questionnaire in 2004.
Compare Brown’s words:
America is a great country, but we face very serious challenges that we need to solve if we’re going to pass on a better, brighter and stronger nation to our kids and grandkids. The most pressing issue before us is getting the economy moving again. Our national unemployment rate is still unacceptably high. Millions of Americans remain out of work, or are stuck in part-time jobs when they would prefer full-time employment. Middle-class families are hurting as they struggle to make ends meet. They’re worried about their future, and that of their children and grandchildren.
with Parmon’s:
North Carolina is a great State, but we continue to face very serious challenges that need resolution.In order for us to pass on a better, brighter and stronger nation to our children and grandchildren, it is critical that we get the economy moving again. Our national unemployment rate is still unacceptably high and the unemployment rate in North Carolina remains high. Middle-class families struggle to make ends meet and most cannot afford health insurance. Issues like health care, education, jobs and women’s rights go hand in hand with developing a sustainable economy; not only for North Carolina but for communities throughout this nation.
All Brown really left out was the policy specifics. Once is an oversight, twice is…?
Plus are campaign websites strictly copyrighted?
Even The Maddow Blog has retracted this story.
The Maddow Blog cites Red Mass Group!
Please BMG issue a correction.
Jack
Perhaps one of the campaigns will provide additional information to allow inquiring minds to discern the truth. I’m not convinced by the arguments that Ms. Parmon copied Scott Brown’s material, to me the evidence speaks to the contrary.
I’ve eaten crow before and, though I don’t like the flavor, will do so again if needed. At the moment (9:25p on 16-Aug), I’m not ready to concede.
Scott Brown is known to have plagiarized his values statement. And, we also know that Brown lied about his plagiarism (hilariously blaming it on a summer intern in February).
So, it’s reasonable to be pretty skeptical about anything that Brown’s campaign produces. Let’s see what Parmon says. Unlike Scott Brown, we have no reason to doubt her truthfulness.
Scott Brown is a Republican in a Democrat’s clothing. I think that makes sense.
nor would I have any problem if some Dem repeated another Dem’s words. Move on…
Google enables all of us to both more easily copy each other but also to “prove” allegations of plagarism. Two examples from this instance:
Googling “better, brighter and stronger nation to our” as a phrase gets only 16 hits. ALL from Earline Parmon with the exception of the hits related to this very blog post and Scott Brown’s use on his issues page. This is a definitive result and strongly suggested the phrase was plagarized.
Googling “our national unemployment rate is still unacceptably high” gets just 14 hits. Again, almost all are related to Earline Parmon or this very post. And a single instance of Scott Brown’s website stealing the phrase.
The fact that these two phrases first appear together in the 2004 Questionaire cited in the post and then also appear togehter on Brown’s website is definitive. Whomever posted this on the website stole the phrasing virtually verbatim from that Questionaire.
Not a huge deal but awfully lazy. You would think – on an issues as important as unemployment and “jobs” – that a sitting Senator might have some of his own ideas.
I would never call out somebody for plagerising that sentence. It’s so unoriginal that any of us could have said it, regardless of party, and of course we would be right.
The point that theloquaciousliberal makes effectively rebuts your claim, though.
The statistics he cited are compelling — you might find these phrases bland and unoriginal, but if that were the case they would be rampant on the web. They are not, and the evidence of his plagiarism is easy to reproduce on your own computer (even using IE). Go to google, enter the phrase (be sure to use quotation marks so that you search the exact phrase), and inspect the results.
I just did it, and there is NO DOUBT that this was plagiarized by Scott Brown. This is particularly ironic given his prior incident — not to mention his failed attack on Ms. Warren’s recipes.
Somehow I’m not surprised that JohnD has no problem with all this — yet another example of IOKIYAR.
1) Checkout the differences between the google results for 2/24/2012 and 2/25/2012 for those two phrases:
“our national unemployment rate is still unacceptably high” through 2/24/2012
“our national unemployment rate is still unacceptably high” through 2/25/2012
“better, brighter and stronger nation to our” through 2/24/2012
“better, brighter and stronger nation to our” through 2/25/2012
Note, on 2/25 was the first time Parmon used those phrases on her website (three days after announcing her candidacy for the state senate).
Prior to that, the only “evidence” she had used it in the past was on the site “vote-nc.org”.
2) Now, about the two vote-nc.org pages that include that phrase (supposedly from 2004 and 2006 respectively)…
Neither of those pages are historical.They both include the sentence: “That’s what my role as Senator will bring to the people of North Carolina.” (hint: she wasn’t running for the senate until 2/21/2012).They include links to a campaign website that wasn’t even initially registered until 4/10/2008.They include links to a youtube video that wasn’t uploaded until 3/8/2011.
If you ask me, Parmon seems to be the actual plagiarist not Senator Brown. So somervilletom, do you still have “NO DOUBT”?
The third hit I see on your first link is http://vote-nc.org/issue.aspx?state=nc&election=nc20041102ga&office=ncstatehouse72&issue=allbio.
That leads to a response that appears to date from November 2, 2004, was cited in the thread-starter, and was quoted in the thread-starter.
Let’s just replay that date again: NOVEMBER SECOND, TWENTY OH FOUR. Scott Brown was finishing his initial incumbency as a member of the Massachusetts House.
I’m not sure what your point is. As to the question you directed at me, I continue to have NO DOUBT that Mr. Brown plagiarized this text from Ms. Parmon.
It may appear to you to date from 11/2/2004…but it couldn’t.
Why? — go read what’s at that link:
1) In the same paragraph with the plagiarism, it includes the sentence about “…role as Senator…”. Parmon wasn’t even running for the NC state senate until 2/21/2012. The text from vote-nc.org exactly matches what was put on her website starting 2/25/2012 (which coincides with her now senate run).
2) It includes a link to a web site url domain that didn’t exist until 4/10/2008.
3) It includes a link to a youtube video that wasn’t uploaded until 3/3/2011.
There’s no way the current content of those pages on vote-nc.org date from 2004 or 2006.
Here’s another experiment that shows the Google dates on those pages is misleading:
“That’s what my role as Senator will bring to the people of North Carolina” through 1/1/2010
Same two pages, same misleading dates.
The date Google puts on the results is the date a page gets first indexed. Note: when the content of a page changes (is updated), the date displayed in the search result isn’t updated if the URL remains the same.
I did the WHOIS search too. I note that the domain name creation date of 2008 for earlineparlmon.com predates Senator Brown’s Senate campaign. I agree with you that the 2004 page has been edited since 2004.
I think the point is that, contrary to Christopher’s assertion, this language appears to be unique to Scott Brown and Earline Parmon. It appears we agree that somebody copied text from somebody. You are apparently making the claim that she plagiarized the text from Scott Brown.
The earliest hit I see on Scott Brown’s site is Jan 24, 2012. I agree with you that all these hits (like so many other Google results) may be as they seem at first blush. Nevertheless, I think the likelihood that Scott Brown copied the text from Earline Parmon (rather than vice-versa) is high enough to convince me “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Your mileage may vary.
Talk about a giant, heaping helping of who gives a shit.
I will never get back the minutes I spent wading through Rob’s post, and the NC-votes website …
Trying to find dirt that may or may not be true and make it stick on your opponent is usually a Republican ploy. Without a doubt Scott Brown is playing that game. None of his ads are issue oriented and totally purposefully non specific. So the thinking caps have to go on and help the public realize who will actually improve your survival. Pushing more taxes on the middle class and giving breaks to upper incomes is not conducive to national well being. This also goes for Sen Brown’s positions on health care, the use of the military, decent wages and so on. What is missing is proper presentation from our side, the framing. People usually want to know what is at stake for them. The peeing contest just let’s both sides blend together. Howard Dean was masterful on reaching wide audiences but got cut off by a major misperception by the media. When corrected it was too late. So let’s do some mental push ups instead of microscoping the opposition’s every word. We know what he is. The public has not learned in enough strong detail who Elizabeth Warren is. And quite frankly she stands heads and shoulders above Sen Brown and he knows it. Why else does he go to the lowest level. He understands he can not win by debating the real issues or claiming some moral advantage.
who was sued for plagiarizing himself.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/85039