Is the "afghan hound on crack" - in legal trouble?

[Sauron]

Yes, folks, Ann Coulter may be facing legal trouble. The charge?

She's apparently quite a productive little plagiarista. The suspicions had been around before, but are now gaining some steam, with her publisher looking into the charges.

Another conservative icon showing the movement's true colors: lies, drugs, hypocrisy, financial bamboozlement -- it's great to be a right winger!

[godfry n. glad]

Every bitch gets one bite.

[BDS]

If I were running an online site called Muckraker.com, and were accusing a best-selling author of plagiarism, I would point out what she has plagiarized. I might even offer some quotes from her writings, and from those from which she supposedly plagiarized.

But that's just me.

[godfry n. glad]

Yeah...I wouldn't print something like that without some credible source to back it up, too. Examples would be nice before you call in an investigation.

So far, merely allegations.

[BDS]

Here's a story that (although it offers no examples) explains the accusations a little better:

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationaln...ip_recchia.htm

[godfry n. glad]

Hmmm... That's quite a pattern. Still, it remains to be seen. I would say on that that an investigation is in order. If for no other reason than to clear her good name.

Still, it's a lot more than they got Joe Biden for.

[Beth]

Well, I'll be waiting to see how this pans out.

[ChuckF]

Keith Olbermann did a good segment on Countdown about Coulter's plagiarism habit.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

If for no other reason than to clear her good name.

Huh?

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by erimir

Huh?

[trientalis]

Examples of Ann Coulter's alleged plagiarism can be found on the Rudepundit blog, gathered together in the July 6 post entitled All Coulter Plagiarism Allegations in One Post. It's the top post as of this evening (Thurs Pacific Time); after tonight you may have to scroll down a bit to find it.

Those offended by sexual content and obscene language should probably steer clear. He's called the Rude Pundit for a reason. Otherwise, have a look for yourself.

[BDS]

I don't find the plagiarism charges in either the Olberman segment Chuck linked or in trientalis' link very heinous. It's not as if Coulter is passing off "Ode on a Grecian Urn" as her own poem. She (apparently) is garnering information from newspapers, and then failing to change the wording sufficiently to satisfy the anti-plagiarism pedants. Who cares? If she had changed the wording (and retained the exact meaning) would that make it OK?

Stealing poetic language, or facts derived from arcane research, and passing it off as your own research or language is contemptable. But is this what Coulter did? As far as I can tell from a quick reading, all she did was crib some passages from newspapers and fail to cite them properly. She could have avoided many of the plagiarism charges if she had simply changed the wording, but would that have really made any difference to the quality of her book? The thrust of the book (which I haven't read) seems to be to make an argument from these facts; the cribbed facts themselves are secondary and inconsequential.

The plagiarism charges suggest that Coulter is lazy, and that she is a lousy writer, but passing off a segment from the Portland Press as one's own writing hardly seems like claiming to have written the "To be or not to be" speech.

Intellectual property is a strange thing. Surely we WANT popular authors like Coulter to be able to write books without bothering with extensive and boring footnotes. Surely we WANT her to be able to garner information from newspapers and magazines (how else is she to get it?).

We all know that Coulter is a liar, who will use a variety of deceitful tactics to make her point. We also know she is an incompetent debater, a shrill TV guest, and a hack writer. Adding the charge of "plagiarist" to these other charges seems to me to simply remove the spotlight from Coulter's venal sins, and shine it on her trivial ones.