George W. Bush, Plagiarizer
Posted: November 12, 2010 Filed under: just because | Tags: Decision Points, George W. Bush, plagiarism 32 Comments
A few years back, I had a freshman in my Psych 101 class who copied most of a paper from a Time Magazine cover story. Naturally, I knew right away she hadn’t written it herself, particularly because her opening and closing paragraphs were full of grammatical errors and misspellings. I sat down with her and explained that you simply can’t copy other people’s work and try to pass it off as your own. It’s called plagiarism, and it can get you kicked out of college. I gave her an F on the paper and said I wouldn’t report her to the administration this time.
What do you do when a former President does pretty much what that college freshman did? Ryan Grim has an exclusive at Huffpo with a number of examples of Bush’s brazen thefts of intellectual property in his recently released memoir, Decision Points.
When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn’t getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises “gripping, never-before-heard detail” about the former president’s key decisions, offering to bring readers “aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq,” and other undisclosed and weighty locations.
Crown also got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial “decision points” of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush’s character: He’s too lazy to write his own memoir.
Bush, on his book tour, makes much of the fact that he largely wrote the book himself, guffawing that critics who suspected he didn’t know how to read are now getting a comeuppance. Not only does Bush know how to read, it turns out, he knows how to Google, too. Or his assistant does. Bush notes in his acknowledgments that “[m]uch of the research for this book was conducted by the brilliant and tireless Peter Rough. Peter spent the past 18 months digging through archives, searching the internet[s], and sifting through reams of paper.” Bush also collaborated on the book with his former speechwriter, Christopher Michel.
Perhaps Bush should have titled his memoir Other People’s Points instead of Decision Points. I knew Bush was a “C” student, but this is ridiculous. Wouldn’t you think his collaborators would have known better, even if Bush didn’t? Certainly Laura Bush, a former librarian, could have explained plagiarism to her husband. Bush even stole from Bob Woodward’s books! Grim suggests that anyone who bought the book can go on a treasure hunt using plagiarism software.
Finding lifted passages in Bush’s book is like an Easter egg hunt. Look for passages with a number of quotes back to back and then slap the passage into Google Books or plagiarism detection software you might have access to. The slideshow below shows what HuffPost has found so far. If you find any more, send the passage to ryan@huffingtonpost.com and we’ll verify it and add it to the list.
Here are a couple of examples from Grim’s article.
From Decision Points, p. 267: “Several months later, four men came to see me at the White House. They were members of the Delta Team that had captured Saddam. They told me the story of the hunt…’My name is Saddam Hussein,’ the man said. ‘I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate.’ ‘Regards from President Bush,’ the soldier replied.”
BBC, Dec. 15, 2003: “How Saddam Hussein was captured”: “[Saddam] put up no resistance although armed with a pistol. ‘My name is Saddam Hussein. I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate,’ he told the US troops in English, according to Major Bryan Reed, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. ‘Regards from President Bush,’ US special forces replied, Major Reed recounted.”
A Time magazine story later questioned whether the story was accurate.
“Legends of the Fall,” Dec. 29, 2003: “A U.S. intelligence official, meanwhile, casts doubt on another widely reported tale: that a U.S. soldier hailed the nemesis of two Commanders in Chief named George Bush by saying: ‘Regards from President Bush.’ This person says some officials suspect the story is ‘apocryphal.’”
So did the soldiers tell Bush that story or did he lift it from the BBC?
Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq… “If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional grounds forces,” he said. “That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.” I had a lot of concerns. … I asked the team to keep working on the plan. “We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,” I said at the end of the meeting. “But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to happen.”
From General Tommy Franks American Soldier, p. 350:
“For example, if we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces. That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.” President Bush’s questions continued throughout the briefing…. Before the VTC ended, President Bush addressed us all. “We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime.” … (p. 355-6) The President paused. “Protecting the security of the United States is my responsibility,” he continued. “But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists.” He shook his head. “I will not allow that to happen.” (emphasis in the original text)
If you’re so inclined, take a look around the ‘net for good examples and share them here. I’m assuming no one here bought the book.
I just have one question about this situation. If one of the writers whose work Bush stole decides to sue him in court, will the Obama Justice Department weigh in to defend Bush? They defended Bush’s torture policy, so why not his plagiarism?
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Just when you think nothing will surprise you … didn’t the editor use the plagiarizing check software every teacher knows to use now days? Guess a Bush gets a big pass? Like for Ivy League schools and National Guard exemptions?
If the publisher doesn’t pull the book back right away, what will happen? Is Bob Woodward going to be OK with it?
I can’t imagine there won’t be law suits or something.
Wow, this is shocking, but I am at the same time disappointed as I truly wanted a ‘First Person’ account of his ‘PET GOAT’ moment on 9/11.
Do you know if that is in the book? Why he sat there and did nothing!?!
I think he did say something like he didn’t want anyone to panic–like the rest of us didn’t already know about the planes hitting the buildings. Whatever he said, it was a lie.
Uh oh, I guess Bill Clinton didn’t get the memo.
Of course it is well-written, just by other people than George W. Bush.
rofl; yeah, Woodward does write well …
Surprise, surprise! And why am I not?
This is a man who held the highest office in the world for 8 years who could barely speak with any articulation and coherency. Eight freaken years we listened to that mangled and sometimes incomprehensible babble and we are now expected to believe that he actually sat down and recorded his own thoughts for posterity?
I am unable to even look at him now without a deep sense of revulsion that this nation put this boob in charge not once but twice.
A truly loathesome and despicable human being. Not surprised in the least that he would stoop to the level of lifting others work and claiming it for himself.
The truly odd thing is that with some of these books–especially the Woodward ones–Rove et al were denying the stuff in them. This looks really lame when you’re cribbing off books your people denied were true.
It’s 6 am here and my day is off a great start.
Shouldn’t his (Google) researcher and assistant get fired? How about his editors.
Bush is really the gift that keeps on giving.
Staring Monday, will be listening to RW radio every chance I get, to heard how they defend this.
“What do we tell the children”?
You would think the copy editor would get fired too. More than that, what are they going to do to reimburse the folks he took the quotes from? This should embarrass the publisher to no end.
“What do we tell the children?”
LOL!
Just another example of, ” Yes ,they do think we are that stupid” …like when they saying oil lace shrimp is “A- ok””
Ain’t that Bush all over? It’s kind of fitting his book is a theft too . /snark
Call it the ” Watch this drive” style of publishing….
Along analogous lines – here’s a golden oldie I posted back in 2008 (when the Stevensonian elites were all raving about Obama’s Philly speech).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132×5148677#5169121
OMG! I knew Obama’s speeches were clones of Deval Patrick’s, but I didn’t know he had stolen quote in his “great speech about race evah!”
Maybe we should start plugging well-written sections from Obama speeches into plagiarism software.
It’s funny how you had his number back then. It simply amazes me what politicians can get away with.
I wonder if he is hitting the bottle again. Kevin Phillips is a Reagan staffer who deeply dislikes the Bush family. His books on American Theocracy, American Dynasty and Bad Money have many quotes regarding young George and how he constantly got bailed out throughout his life time.
That said, I am was wondering about the substance of his book. I assume he will try to rewrite history, but his editors should know there are to many books out there that dispute his debacle decisions.
I understand that he is dyslexic. Could that be why “My Pet Goat” was upside down.
He also went into a trance and did not dismiss the class to take command. More over they flew him arround keeping him incommunicado. Was he in a state of shock. Dick Clark has a pretty good description of what went on in the White House in “Against all Enimies” However Bush is not mentioned as being in command. Condi said to him – this is your area – you are in charge. As I recall, Cheney was giving the direction.
That said I was kind of surprised that Bush would come out with a book defending himself. He does not seem to have a idea of all the books out there with counterfactual evidence. I guess he is counting on the fawning media to provide the smoke screen.
That said, the Bush book might allow us the comparison with Obama. While Obama is smarter, his economic and war policies are really continuation of the Bush programs. Like the Bush Wars and Economic policies, Obama health care and financial reform were botched entities.
Maybe this from Spiegel Online answers some of your questions?
“Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said that Bush “had no idea about what was going on in the world”.” And
And then there’s this and this.
Wow, great links, Pips!
And that reminds me, I wonder if Bush explained the shoulder fondling episode with Merkel in his book?
I think Cheney gave the shootdown order for Flight 93.
We’re lucky he didn’t order every plane shot down before they could ground themselves.
Dak – I doubt that Bush was in charge. I still think he was in a state of shock becsuse he knew he had been warned about a attack and his response to the CIA was ” now you have covered your ass” and he and Condi promted the warning to a lower level and paid no attention to it.
When the attack came, he went into shock and I think they had to fly him around to get him out of shock. Cheny was running the government then. Remember that comments were made publicly that Cheny seemed to be in charge. There was a meeting and all of a sudden Bush was back in charge. I suspect papa Bush got in there and changed things to where they should be.
That said, recall that he was in the Air National Guard as a fighter pilot. It was going around the airwaves that he was a white knuckle flier. Hence when things got strenuous he chickened out. So – when 9/11 hit, he paniced and they had to cover it up.
In a recent C-Span covered conference in Texas, the status of commercial and military pilots during 911 was discussed. The Military pilots said they had armed planes and were told before take off that they could be shooting down american airliners. They told the audience that they had verification of command procedures, once that was done, they would shoot down the airliner. The other quirk of that time was just before the planes were left back up in the air, a plane went aroung the country to pick up Royal Family Saudi citizens. Recall that most of the terrorists were Saudi and Egyptian citizens. Bush bringing out his book reserects all of that stuff of which books have been written about.
“Thanks” I say sarcastically for all the great links and the “wonderful” picture of the smirking chimp. Kevin Drum writes very well about the Bu$hitmister, perfect explanation for BO, his birth twin. I have extreme BDS – since 1999. Bu$hit’s actions were so predictable – I still have the front page of the Daily Mirror, Nov. 4, 2004 – How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?. I think the “twins” have destroyed this country by selling out the “masters of the universe”.
Does anyone question why BC would want you to read his book? Bizzzaro world, banana republic continues……..Bu$hit’s “own” words. I hope I live long enough to witness the pendulum swing back. What bitter irony that Bu$hit’s reign started in the new millennium, a hoped-for period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and JUSTICE…….
Maybe BC is the one who tipped off Huffpo? I wouldn’t expect him to say anything rude about the book anyway.
I think it’s interesting he shows up just AFTER the midterms…. reminding us of his many “charms” can’t help Dems that way
I have a feeling Laura Bush, being smarter than her husband, (but who married him a fit of trying-to-help-the-poor-man, since regretted) has decided the least-upsetting course is to pretend unawareness of it all.
They probably sleep in separate rooms and live separate lives.
That’s hilarious, who in the world needs to do “research” to write his own memoirs? If his memory is that bad, and what an amazing quality for POTUS, he should probably just skip it.
Why plagiarize when you can have ghost writers? Or did Bush hire plagiarizing ghost writers?
He had a co-writer which is odd that this still happened.