The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Shorter Juan Williams: I’m Sorry My Underpaid Assistant Plagiarized That Column With My Byline I Didn’t Write

Posted on | March 8, 2013 | 36 Comments

Who am I to judge, huh? Hasn’t it been my lifelong ambition to get paid big bucks without actually doing any work? But the rock star dream didn’t happen, so I was forced to resort to journalism, which requires me to sit in front of a laptop computer and at least pretend that this is “work.” Still, I cling to the hope that someday I might be successful enough to have an assistant – preferably one with ginormous boobies — who can take care of all the drudgery like transcribing audio, fetching coffee and booking my flights to conferences where I collect a couple thousand bucks for giving a 45-minute speech about whatever.

Nevertheless, I would require that my large-breasted assistant actually be competent, because otherwise bad things might happen:

A column by Fox News talking head Juan Williams published last month by the Hill was quietly updated last week to fix some pesky instances of plagiarism. The article, it turned out, featured entire paragraphs from a Center for American Progress report on immigration, with a few words changed here and there, as detailed by Salon. “I was writing a column about the immigration debate and had my researcher look around to see what data existed to pump up this argument and he sent back what I thought were his words and summaries of the data,” Williams told Alex Seitz-Wald without apologizing.

Wait – Juan Williams’s “researcher” is a he? What’s the point of having an incompetent assistant plagiarizing stuff for your ghost-written column, without titties?

Juan: You’re killing the dream here, buddy.

UPDATE: Oops. I fixed a typo — actually, I misspelled “incompetent” — which is why I need an assistant with keen eyes (and a nice rack) to spot typographical errors.

UPDATE II: Ace of Spades HQ:

I wonder how widespread this practice is. I wonder how many of these “writers” and “thinkers” have actually stopped writing and instead are now “Producers” of writing, the way a producer on a film hires the team and oversees the team but doesn’t actually take the concrete steps we usually think of in making a movie.

The problem is that there is a vast reserve army of underemployed writers who are happy to get paid to put words under the byline of some Famous Name. It’s a buyer’s market, really, which is why I insist on a competent assistant, with really massive yabbos.

UPDATE III: Just in case anyone thinks that I am being sexist in requiring my assistant to be stacked like the Great Pyramid of Giza, I’ll remind you of Instapundit’s discovery of scientific proof that larger-breasted women are more intelligent. And he’s a Yale-educated law professor, y’know. Certainly he wouldn’t dream of engaging in unfair discrimination.

 

Bookmark and Share
Category: Journalism, Scandal

Comments

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    Nice linkage from AoSHQ! Congratulations!

    Although I found this comment disturbing: “It’s a buyer’s market, really, which is why I insist on a competent assistant, with really massive yabbos.” Smitty and Wombat are obviously super competent, but TMI!

  • http://capitalistpreservation.blogspot.com/ Will Profit

    Juan Williams getting paid to write is pathetic unto itself.

  • narciso

    In the first instance, the attribution was to the original source, in the second he didn’t quote cap, but he referenced the source of the statistic,

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    All of which adds up to . . . plagiarism.

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    Juan Williams don’t need no stinkin’ big-boobed assistant!

    First of all, he turned gay for Obama in 2008. Secondly, if he wanted to see a big boob, he could just look in the mirror.

    A dyed-in-the-wool Obama supporter steals? I’m shocked. Well, at least bemused. Again.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    You keep getting that job description wrong, McCain. It’s “competetent assistant, with really massive yabbos and the abillity to outrun a 16-gauge charge of #6 shot when Mrs. Other McCain sees her.”

    You, on the other hand, just need to practice screaming “ItwasjustabackgrubIsweartoGod!” every time the office door opens.

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    He’s not being paid to write or to give live commentary. He’s paid to shill for Obama.

    He must be being paid to do it, because it is all he does.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Does his writing read like his whiny little voice sounds on the air?

  • JeffWeimer

    I’ve known Smitty since we were yay high to a grasshopper (not a joke), and he doesn’t quite meet the yabbos request, never has. But he’s loyal and works cheap (read: free or better) so Stacy goes into battle with the Army he has.

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    This is updated with an image of the perfect assistant for RSM!

    And no joking, for a blogger like RSM, Smitty and Wombat are a hell of an army!

  • http://profiles.google.com/dianna.deeley Dianna Deeley

    But, Stacy, you not only get us to proof you for free*, but we pay you for the privilege! Best of all possible worlds! Dr. Pangloss would be thrilled!

    *Yes, I know, I’m never around to proof any more. Talk to the Trustees about how over-worked I am.

  • CowboyLogic

    Juan Williams might be getting paid to write, but nobody could ever pay me to read it.

  • http://profiles.google.com/dianna.deeley Dianna Deeley

    Highly gifted assistants?

  • Dana

    Hey, even St Paul apparently used writing assistants!

  • Dana

    And WordPress underlines missssspellled words for you. :)

  • Dana

    Of course, assuming that you can’t get Katy Perry as your assistant, regrettable though that would be, we all know that you are appreciative of the USA Olympic Water Polo team, some of whom combine athleticism, intelligence and less than massive mammaries. Will that be good enough?

  • Pingback: Michelle Malkin » Juan Williams: I’m not a plagiarist, but the guy who writes my columns might be

  • http://twitter.com/BeccaJLower Becca Lower

    Your “genius” copy-editor escaped from the laptop just long enough to get a pre-CPAC haircut. Ironic that you misspelled that word. heehee

  • http://www.leftbankofthecharles.com/ Charles

    Yes, I think this has become very common. Isn’t this the Doris Kearns Goodwin defense? Profiles in Courage may have been the start of this.

    I do see a lot of potential for the lowly underling to “inadvertently” plagiarize for the purpose of sticking it to their boss. And I would suppose that an enterprising young conservative might try to get hired by some liberal “writer” in order to discredit them by committing an act of plagiarism under their byline.

  • Pingback: Derptastic: ‘Real journalist’ Juan Williams busted for plagiarism

  • http://www.theconservativevoices.com/ dmacleo

    LOL
    hey, whats a backgrub look like?
    is that the yabbos resting on the back?

  • Pingback: Ed Driscoll » Juan Williams Busted for Plagiarizing Fareed Zakaria’s Method of Getting Busted for Plagiarism

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Stacy wrote: It’s a buyer’s market, really, which is why I insist on a competent assistant, with really massive yabbos.

    ERRATA: The line from Animal House is ‘major league yaboos’.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    That’s dubbed-in.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Kate Perry has gone through hydraulic lifting and Stacy likes his boobs organic.

  • JeffWeimer

    Dear Lord, that animated GIF even looks a little like Smitty…..

  • Pingback: Juan Williams: I’m not a plagiarist, but the guy who writes my columns might be | Conservatives for America

  • Quartermaster

    Mrs. TOM is smart enough to leave Mr. TOM to his own devices. Soon after obtaining his new assistant with major league yabbos he’ll be suffering from severe eye strain and the tip jar will peter off to nothing and she’ll have her revenge when her real colors are shown and she starts writing his columns for him and then we wonder why TOM is suddenly turned into a feminist wacko.

  • Pingback: Juan Williams: I’m not a plagiarist, but the guy who writes my columns might be | Tony Johnson

  • JohnInMA

    Hey, bills in Congress written by CAP are introduced nearly untouched, so why not use their words verbatim in an article???

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    We’ll just pretend I didn’t edti that.

  • Fred Beloit

    Paul “Spend like it is the last day of the world” Krugman wrote this in the NYT: “Four years ago, as a newly elected president began his efforts to rescue the economy and strengthen the social safety net, conservative economic pundits — people who claimed to understand markets and know how to satisfy them — warned of imminent financial disaster.”

    Now these journalists and bearded economists don’t need research assistants, they need to hire copy editors (who come cheap, BTW). A copy editor would say, Hey, Paul, this sentence has a straw man in it. Conservatives never said “imminent financial disaster”. They said “long-term financial disaster.”

  • teapartydoc

    Racists are generally quite stupid, and Juan is a racist.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ Proof

    ” he sent back what I thought were his words and summaries of the data”

    So, his defense consists of saying he didn’t intentionally plagiarize the Center for American Progress because he thought he was merely plagiarizing his assistant?

    Got it.

  • Pingback: Alexis C. Madrigal, Harvard ’04 : The Other McCain

Performance Optimization WordPress Plugins by W3 EDGE