Plagiarizing Dem Senator Also Probably Fudged His Military Record

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed that most of Sen. John Walsh’ (D-MT) 14-page masters’ thesis was plagiarized, and today it got worse for the appointed senator: in his staff’s attempt to downplay the scandal, they inadvertently lied more.

The Washington Post received a “fact sheet” from Walsh’s staff that cast the blatant plagiarism — i.e., lifting entire passages without citation, and failing to properly cite others — as “an unintentional mistake,” suggesting that his PTSD may have contributed to his errors. They also pulled the Someone Is Trying To Smear Us card, the Media Is Trying To Find A Salacious Angle card, and the Walsh Is A Veteran And Therefore Immune card. From the fact sheet:

While commanding the 1-163rd Infantry Battalion in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, Walsh survived hundreds of IED explosions while in a Humvee, he was targeted – by name – by Al Qaeda in Iraq, and his unit endured hundreds of rocket attacks.

The Post soon received a clarification from Walsh’s staff saying he didn’t “survive hundreds of IED explosions”:

“He survived an attack in October 2005, while his unit endured hundreds of both IED and rocket attacks throughout the deployment,” a Walsh spokeswoman said.

1 ≠ 100.

Walsh is also up for re-election, so this is going to make him look real good.

[The Washington Post]
[Image via John Walsh/Facebook]

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