Harper and plagiarism?

This was a screw-up and I suspect someone's head will roll.

In case you have not heard the news, to quote a Liberal press release, "Mr. Harper had copied key portions of his speech urging Canada to participate in the U.S. military invasion of Iraq from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's speech to the Australian Parliament two days earlier".

Now the Party goes on to suggest that (1) Harper is in Bush's pocket and (2) has no new ideas.

I'm not so sure either of these points are really on.

First, at this point no one is in Bush's pocket -- not even his own Party (look at the bail out). It is true both Bush and Harper come from the right but that's not saying much. Harper = Harris? perhaps but calling Harper Bush-lite, while amusing, trivialises their ideological links.

Second, Harper is no dummy -- he has lots of ideas (mostly to my mind misguided but that's another point). Harper doesn't need to steal text for his speeches. He is a competent bright guy and attacking him for being intellectually lazy just isn't credible.

So what did happen?

My sense is that Harper had an assistant who did a draft of a speech and cribbed it from a recent speech covering the same ground. Harper would never have known about the crib unless he saw the Howard speech himself. Harper wouldn't be so dense as to steal a speech knowing it was important, would be considered closely and would be transcribed. This is especially so as he could have done a better speech by himself anyway.

Harper is not to blame for the plagiarism.

But he did give a speech that parroted the lines of the rush to war guys. So, maybe we should ask why he was comfortable giving a speech supporting the Iraq war? It's that war, not the Afghan mission, that has led to the fiscal chaos.

Anyway, see the Liblink below for the actual details:


http://www.liberal.ca/video_e.aspx?guid=4666DC99-F70E-4FFD-A461-FF1B3A060706


James Morton
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