As a college English teacher, I've written before about the problem of plagiarism, citing instances such as the request a student  once made late in the semester,   to change her term paper topic from "Entitlements for Federally Recognized Indian Tribes,"  to "The Trail of Tears," because, she said, she could not find enough information on the former.

Because I knew there were essays galore on the Web dealing with the latter historic Cherokee relocation, I suspected she was planning to plagiarize a pirated term paper.

But since I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt,   I agreed to her petition for a change. Later, I had to become a detective, spending time copying excerpts from her paper into a plagiarism software program  to verify that it was authentic. When I had proof that it was not, I failed the student.

I copied the lines from the stolen work and pasted them in bold format, adjacent to the paragraphs in her "own" paper. When I gave her the F along with the evidence, I felt satisfaction for catching a cheat, but disappointment for her failure as a student, and mine as her teacher.

I experienced a comparable mix of feelings about the September 8^th op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal  under the byline of John McCain and Sarah Palin, entitled, "We'll Protect Taxpayers from More Bailouts." 

An essay by candidates for high office, popping up during the frenzy of an election  campaign,  inevitably arouses suspicion over whether or not it is original.  It's even more suspicious when you consider that McCain did not write his own nomination acceptance speech, and that Palin's was drafted by a speechwriter a week before she was even selected.

Joey Kennedy of the Birmingham News is one of many other editorial page editors who shares my skepticism: "We understand that many politicians, CEOs and even college presidents don't write their own stuff; they, are, however, held responsible for it if it's under their name."

Doug Floyd of the Spokane, Washington, Spokesman Review, is another: " I'm skeptical anytime I see a national political figure's byline on an op-ed piece in any of the major national dailies…and I don't think for a second that McCain and Palin wrote the piece -- especially jointly."

Still, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.  After all, it is not impossible for them to have taken a couple of hours off from the campaign trail, to hunker down in a hotel conference room and knock out an 800 word essay.

As I began reading,  I remained cautiously optimistic, since the first paragraph seemed to project, at least,  McCain's political voice (I was unfamiliar with Palin's) in his condemnation of the federal bailout of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. 

But when it transitioned to describing a list of intentions the candidates had for avoiding such problems in the future,   the wording turned abstract and familiar, reminiscent of the themed bromides you might read in any Republican party platform.

Suddenly, midway through the op-ed, I experienced a feeling similar to the combination of sadness and deja vu with which I was stricken while reading that college term paper, when my eyes  fixated on a  block of text I knew I'd read somewhere before.

A bit of checking with the aid of an internet search engine, confirmed that a chunk of nearly 200 words from a speech McCain read as long ago as March 25^th, was pasted almost verbatim in the op-ed, in a paragraph beginning this way:

"Homeowners should be able to understand easily the terms and obligations of a mortgage. In return, they have an obligation to provide truthful financial information and should be subject to penalty if they do not. Lenders who initiate loans…," and so on.

When I questioned the Wall Street Journal about whether the op-ed came from  speechwriters or from a partnered writing effort by McCain and Palin, I received the following reply from an editorial spokesperson: "We will decline comment."

That they would publish an "opinion piece"   which, in reality, was little more than a campaign ad composted from recycled speeches and party propaganda, speaks volumes about their ownership and editorial policy.

But readers and voters can take heart that most other newspapers would be loath to replicate such behavior.  

"We generally don't run opeds from candidates," wrote Bruce Dold, Editorial Page Editor for the Chicago Tribune.  "There is a fairness issue and the oped page is a place to promote ideas, not campaigns."

And this from aforementioned Spokesman editor Floyd: "I've made it our
policy in recent years to reject such columns -- yes, including from
governors and members of Congress -- unless I have an assurance that the
signatory personally wrote it (rare) or their understanding that we will
explain to our readers the essentials of authorship.  Usually that means
a tag line reading something like, 'Members of the Senate majority
caucus staff prepared this column for Sen. Smith's signature.'"

To repair some of the damage done to media credibility, and to the democratic process itself, editors should follow a policy similar to that of the Spokane, Washington newspaper.

David McGrath is a writer and teacher at the University of South Alabama.  Email him at dmcgrath@usouthal.edu.

Published September 20, 2008