The associated press recently reported that an aide to President Bush has resigned because he admitted to plagiarizing. The aide, Timothy Goeglein, wrote a semi-regular column for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne Indiana. Goeglein was a special assistant who worked as a liaison with influential conservatives and was at one time Karl Rove's right hand man, an appropriate title for a conservative.
    Goeglin submitted an apology with his resignation, which turned out to be plagiarized from Richard Nixon. The White House subsequently issued a statement saying that President Bush was disappointed in his special assistant. When Bush was asked to comment on the statement, he noted that he did not write it. Bush did say that plagiarism was a serious offense and that today was "a day that will live in infamy." When President Bush was asked what Goeglien's official duties were in the administration he stated, "ask not what Goeglein does for you, ask what you can do for your country."
    I am not sure who said it but plagiarism is a serious offense. I know that I was particularly upset when it turned out that Goeglein had been plagiarizing this column for years. I suppose he figured that I did not read The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne Indiana but he obviously underestimated my international appeal.
    In case you are wondering how bad the plagiarism was I will present you with a couple of examples from last weeks column which was entitled, "Better Late than Never,"

Me:
" A lot of people hate Castro. I guess it’s that ruthless dictator thing. I don’t have any Castro posters on my wall nor do I own any of his audio recordings, but I am still going to miss the guy on some levels. Castro offered a degree of stability after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "

Goeglein:
"A bunch of people hate Castro. I, Timothy Goeglein not Thom Jennings, guess it is that ruthless dictator thing. I, Timothy Goeglein not Thom Jennings, don’t have any Castro posters on my wall nor do, it's me Tim not somebody else, own any of his audio recordings, but of it's really me writing this, am still going to miss the guy on some levels. Castro offered a degree of stability after the collapse of the U.S.S.R."
   
    I admit that I had to read Goeglein's column through a couple of times before I figured out that he had ripped me off. It made me feel violated and suddenly I empathized with Metallica and their fight with illegal music down loaders, except for the fact that I do not have millions of dollars or any former drug addictions.
     Politics and plagiarism is nothing new. In a recent debate, Hillary Clinton accused Barack Obama of presenting "change you can Xerox." Obama gave copies of his rebuttal to the press. When John McCain was asked about the Democrats and their infighting, he simply said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  A reporter then asked McCain if he realized that he had taken that quote from Abraham Lincoln to which McCain replied, "I thought it was taken from Thom Jennings."  It is about time I got credit for something I said !