Good grief. A school board chairman plagarized in a speech to a graduating class. Several years ago the same speech had been given by Donna Shalala, former secretary (appointed by Bill Clinton) of the Department of Health and Human Services. Keith Cook is (was?) responsible for enforcing the same academic code of conduct he violated.
He [Cook] came across a speech on the Internet titled “Lessons from the Titanic,” a quip-heavy tale about the importance of making each moment in life count.
A week later, Cook is wishing he could take that moment back. On Friday night, addressing the graduating seniors, he used portions of the “Titanic” speech without giving credit to its author, Donna Shalala.
Now, he is hoping that his plagiarized speech based on the movie about the ill-fated ship doesn’t sink his political career.
Good luck with all that. Should I feel sorry for him? I know what deep regret is, so I can certainly relate to what he’s probably going through.
Cook said he was thinking of the students when he sat down to prepare his speech. He had just watched “Titanic,” so when he saw the Shalala speech, he said he thought it was a good one to build his address around. He said he thought it would be funny and inspirational.
Cook wrote an introduction, whittled the Shalala portion of the speech down to fit a three- to four-minute time slot, and practiced. For four days, he practiced the speech, making sure every line landed just right.
“I have never prided myself in being a good writer,” he said. “What I have prided myself in is a good delivery.”
Writing is sometimes a struggle, but cheating isn’t the answer. I cheated in a class back in undergrad and got an A. I still feel terrible about it (and that was a loooooong time ago).
Now on to what’s really going on today: the resignation of George Tenet, former CIA director. Actually, this Clinton Administration holdover should have been gone four years ago.
CIA Director George Tenet resigned as head of the U.S. intelligence agency on Wednesday, President Bush announced Thursday.
Tenet, 51, has been at the center of controversy over the government’s response to terror threats prior to the Sept. 11 attacks and the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq….
Tenet had been under fire for months in connection with intelligence failures related to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, specifically assertions the United States made about Saddam Hussein’s purported weapons of mass destruction and the threat from the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Heads should have rolled after September 11 anyway, so you can believe that Tenet is either a scapegoat or, according to an anonymous source: “It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well-being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less,” Tenet said.
Isn’t it ironic that a Democrat’s head rolled because of pre-September 11 intelligence failures? Appropriately, too. After all, isn’t it more than reasonable to assume the failures began during the Clinton Administration?
