George W. Bush, Plagiarizer

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?