July 22, 2005

Coulter accused of plagiarism . . .

by

“A column penned by the doyenne of right-wing rhetoric Ann Coulter has come under fire for alleged plagiarism,” according to a report on Raw Story.com by John Byrne. He says a June 29, 2005 column by Coulter called “Thou Shall Not Commit Religion” “bears a striking resemblance to pieces in magazines dating as far back as 1985.” Byrne lists numerous examples of similar passages between Coulter’s column and a 1995 Boston Globe column by conservative commentator Jeff Jacoby, a column from Counterpoint magazine, talking points from an attack on the NEA by Rev. Donald Wildon of the American Family Association, and a column from the defunct conservative magazine called The Flummery Digest. Byrne says he “found Coulter’s work to be at worst plagiarism and at best a cut-and-paste repetition of points authored by conservative religious groups in the early 1990s.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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