Fox News contributor Allen West has been caught plagiarizing. Not only that, the material he plagiarized, which accused President Obama of not honoring the deaths of slain law enforcement officers (the way he did with Ferguson's Michael Brown), was false.
From Media Matters:
Allen West heavily plagiarized from a viral Internet story in a piece attacking the Obama administration for purportedly ignoring the deaths of law enforcement officers. West lifted at least six paragraphs (including typos) from the story, which was previously posted on sites like Yahoo! Answers, Free Republic, Facebook, and the comments section of various websites.
West is a Fox News contributor and former Republican congressman who was recently named the CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), a conservative think tank. Announcing his hiring, NCPA called West, who begins on January 2, “an outstanding choice for CEO. He is a visionary leader, committed to the free-market principles that form the foundation of the NCPA’s research and education.”
Apparently, the “free-market principles” that West loves also apply to freely appropriating written content as his own. Media Matters has posted a side-by-side comparison of West’s material with material posted elsewhere so you can see for yourself the similarities.
But wait, there’s more. As Media Matters also notes, the accusation that President Obama gave more recognition to the death of Ferguson’s Michael Brown than law enforcers killed in the line of duty has been rated “Pants on Fire” by PolitiFact.
After being exposed by Media Matters, West updated his post but did not admit to plagiarizing.
Color us shocked… not.
West illustration credit: DonkeyHotey via photopin cc