I labeled Rand Paul a “serial plagiarist” in jest yesterday, but it appears that he really does have a bad habit.
The New York Times caught another instance of Rand Paul Plagiarism yesterday.
In an op-ed article he wrote for The Washington Times in September on mandatory minimum prison sentences, Mr. Paul, a Republican, appears to have copied language from an essay that had previously run in The Week magazine.
That article, written by Dan Stewart, an editor for The Week, included this sentence: “America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.” It was posted to the web on Sept. 14.
On Sept. 20, Mr. Paul wrote this: “America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.”
If you write with any regularity you’re going to write something, at some point, that looks similar or familiar, but this is an unattributed word-for-word copy.
I would suggest that those who are searching for other instances of Rand Paul Plagiarism continue to do so because I doubt the four instances identified so far are an exhaustive list.