Nixon's Monica Stonewalls, Part II
Monica Crowley, the Fox News political analyst and author of two books about
her former boss, Richard Nixon, is annoyed with Chatterbox for characterizing
her stance toward her plagiarism controversy (see "
Nixon's Monica Stonewalls About Plagiarism!") as "stonewalling." She told
Chatterbox (who finally reached her today by phone): "I did not stonewall you
or the issue." She hadn't returned Chatterbox's earlier queries because she was
on vacation, she said; and she'd already explained herself to Felicity
Barringer of the New York Times .
But careful readers of Chatterbox's earlier item--about the striking
similarities between a recent Op-Ed piece Crowley wrote for the Wall Street
Journal and an essay written 11 years earlier by Paul Johnson for
Commentary-- will note that Chatterbox had already allowed for the
possibility that Crowley was on vacation. They will also note that Crowley's
comment as quoted in the Times --that "I have not read" Johnson's
piece--seemed, under the circumstances, to be less than truthful. It was mainly
in reference to this Times quote that Chatterbox was accusing Crowley of
"stonewalling." And guess what? Crowley--who confirmed to Chatterbox that she's
currently writing a Liddy Dole profile for Talk magazine--is
still stonewalling!
To review: No fewer than five passages in Crowley's Op-Ed, a tribute
to Nixon pegged to the 25th anniversary of his resignation, were worded in ways
that were identical or nearly identical to passages in the Johnson article.
(Scroll down to the bottom of Chatterbox's
earlier item to assess the extremely damaging evidence.) It isn't
possible that Crowley never read Johnson's piece. When the Journal
got wind of the similarities, it published an editor's note saying it wouldn't
have published Crowley's piece had it been aware of the "striking similarities
in phraseology."
Crowley now says she does not remember making the absolute statement ("I
have not read") that the Times attributed to her. Her mantra to
Chatterbox was, "I do not remember reading the [Johnson] piece." Cleverly
pretending the accusation against her was that she stole Johnson's ideas
about Nixon, she said that "the concepts in question are shared by those with a
knowledgeable background of [Nixon's] life and career." Well, sure, it can well
be imagined that two people would independently arrive at the (erroneous)
idea that Nixon got screwed. What can't be imagined is that two people
would independently arrive at the same words to express this idea.
"I understand that there are clear similarities in some of the language use,
but I arrived at my conclusions independently and I expressed them that way,"
Crowley told Chatterbox. "Nor would I ever submit material from a source for
publication without attribution, without citing it properly."
But surely, Chatterbox sputtered, you must have read Johnson's
article. Are you saying you didn't read Johnson's article?
"I don't remember ever reading the piece," Crowley answered.
But that's not possible! Chatterbox said. Lengthy passages are repeated
verbatim, or almost verbatim!
"I acknowledge to you there are similarities in the phraseology," Crowley
said.
Oh, come on, Chatterbox said. Why not come clean and at least admit that you
must have plagiarized inadvertently?
"I did not plagiarize. Absolutely not."
What about the giveaway Britishism (Johnson is British; Crowley is not) you
repeated--that Nixon emerged from Watergate "with credit"?
"Come on, Tim, I've been using that phrase for a long time."
Chatterbox briefly considered dedicating the rest of his life to finding out
whether Crowley has ever before used the phrase "with credit," and decided
against it. Clearly, Crowley wasn't going to do even a Ruth Shalit (i.e., admit
plagiarism but say it was inadvertent and trivial), which Chatterbox previously
thought was the minimal amount of self-abnegation such a situation demanded.
Crowley was just going to ... stonewall.
It's working. Aside from Chatterbox's rants on the subject, there continues
to be no follow-up to the Times item (and an earlier one by the
New York Post ) in any news outlet tracked by Nexis. This provides
further evidence that Bob Woodward is wrong when he argues in his new book,
Shadow , that lying and obfuscating by public figures is inevitably
self-destructive. Chatterbox remembers writing this before ("Why Clinton Was
Better Off Lying"), but the archival link doesn't seem to be working just now,
so he'll just plagiarize himself.
