There is an unexpected dust up over the nomination of George Mason law professor (and former Senate Judiciary Committee chief counsel) Michael E. O’Neill. The former aide to Sen. Arlan Specter has been accused of plagiarism in his legal publications and now may failed in his confirmation bid.
O’Neill is credited with helping push through the nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. as well as other controversial judicial picks. He has now become the controversy after the Supreme Court Economic Review, a peer-reviewed journal, issued a retraction of an article by O’Neill in 2004 due to the fact that “substantial portions” were “appropriated without attribution” from a book review by Anne C. Dailey, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. My former colleague Gerald M. Caplan, former dean of the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, has also been allegedly copied without attribution.
Notably, Daniel D. Polsby, an editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review (and my former torts professor), is also the dean of the George Mason School of Law. Polsby was contacted by Professor Dailey. However, Polsby insisted that O’Neill was “duly chastised” and that”[t]he idea of O’Neill committing a theft is just impossible. It’s just impossible.”
Polsby said that O’Neill agreed to halt his tenure effort “will reapply for it.” In the meantime, Specter pushed him for the district court, which would give him lifetime tenure of a different sort. O’Neill notes that the school clearly him of any willful misconduct. Notably, another professor allegedly copies by O’Neill supports that view. Professor Neal Kumar Katyal says that he knows O’Neill and “I can’t imagine that he would intentionally copy this banal point from my article.”
For the full story, click here.
rafflaw,
You can also add to the torture list the Congressional testimony that the techniques taught to US interrogators were taken from a book of North Korean torture techniques. This book was/is used to teach special forces what torture is and how they might endure it. The book’s use has been flipped to actually teach these techniques as “enhanced interrogation”.
I guess it is only torture when not done by US government as they decide appropriate. Pure moral relativism.
As for this article, I agree that students are treated worse than these so called academic professionals when caught.
Michael & Susan,
Thank you for your kind comments. After she called me a dimwit, I had to remind her and RCampbell reminded her of the facts that she seems to always want to avoid.
Michael Spindell wrote:
I can only applaud rafflaw and rcampbell for their yeomen efforts to make sense of your comments and in their deconstruction & rebuttals make it easier for me to discern what points you are trying to make.
**********************
So do I; Rafflaw and RCampbell have far more patience with Martha’s ranting posts about Sen. Obama than I do. Her posts seem to have gotten more shrill over the last two weeks. One can almost hear the sound of nails on chalkboard coming from them. Yikes.
Martha,
I find your posts a mixture of incoherence, Non Sequitur and untruths. To be honest your line of reasoning is almost impossible to follow. I can only applaud rafflaw and rcampbell for their yeomen efforts to make sense of your comments and in their deconstruction & rebuttals make it easier for me to discern what points you are trying to make. What they haven’t explained to me though is whether your comments are meant be ironic, comedic or serious. If its’ the latter I think you need to re-think your strategy.
GOP Rep. ‘Bush should stay home from RNC, everybody would be better off’
Martha,
It must be hard going through life with such a blatant disregard for the truth. Armitage disclosed Plame along with Rove and who were those two other guys???? Oh yes, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. Libby was actually convicted for lying to the FBI and Bush had to commute his sentence for the crime. Journalists Robert Novak and Matt Cooper admitted that Rove and/or Libby were there sources on the Plame outing. I am sure the facts just slipped your mind. As to the firing of U.S. Attorneys, you trotted out that old Fox News and Rush talking point that Clinton fired the U.S. attorneys. Let’s not let the facts get in our way, shall we. Clinton fired the Bush I attorneys at the beginning of his first term, like Georgie’s dad and other Presidents have. George W. and his minions fired the U.S. attorneys during his term for political reasons. Let’s not mix apples with oranges, shall we??
As to your claim that Gore/Clinton lied about WMD’s, once again you find your way to the wrong conclusion. Clinton and Gore and other pols thought Sadamm still had WMD’s because of the false and cherry picked intelligence put out by the Bush regime. Secondly, Clinton and Gore were not in office and did not take us to war in Iraq because of the lies about WMD’s and oil. George W. Bush did.
As to the illegal torture program, have you been asleep for the last several months? The Bush Administration has admitted under oath in a Congressional hearing that they waterboarded at least 3 detainees. Waterboarding is a crime under U.S. and International agreements that were accepted by the U.S. We prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding U.S. personnel in WWII. We prosecuted U.S. personnel for waterboarding vietnames prisoners during Vietnam. I am sure that Professor Turley can give you even more examples than I can of how torture, including waterboarding, violates U.S. law.
Now, stop trolling and go back to the sand box where you belong.
Martha
Does all this now mean you’re going to vote FOR Senator Obama? Are your rantings meant to obscure the rampant policy flip-flops of McBush? A response from you is neither expected nor of any real interest.
Martha
You’re going to have to keep up. Obama’s position was ONLY an issue because he supported the immunity. He didn’t support the illegal wiretapping. Further, liberals didn’t oppose wiretapping even of Americans, we simply expect the President to abide by the law instead of openly and defiantly breaking it.
CNN poll shows Obama going backwards with Democrats
July 5, 2008
According to CNN polling, Obama has managed to lose Democrats rather than heal the party after an often-bitter primary. Hillary Clinton has gained eight points in the poll since conceding to Obama, and more of her supporters now say they will stay home rather than cast a vote for the man who bested their favorite:
One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.
A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.
Support for Hillary’s nomination rose from 35% to 43% since her withdrawal. The percentage of refuseniks among them has also risen from 22% to nearly a third. This comes just a week after Hillary Clinton appeared with Obama at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire, to re-endorse Obama and emphasize her support. What has happened?
CNN gets part of the answer in its analysis. Four weeks is not enough time for polarized Democrats to get over the bitterness of the campaign, they say, and it will probably take much longer given the length of the primaries in this cycle.
Obama’s long string of policy reversals over the last few weeks have made the Clintons look like the Rock of Gibraltar on the issues.
Flip-flops on NAFTA, FISA reform, and public financing not only make Obama look dishonest, but a political disaster waiting to happen on the scale of a Walter Mondale or a George McGovern. It’s increasingly clear that the only principle to which Obama will cling is his own benefit, and everyone and everything else can easily go under the bus as long as it benefits Obama.
Don’t expect the Clintons to amp up their support to help Obama. Hillary and Bill see Obama as a disaster as well, and they’re looking at 2012 as well as getting their debt retired from this cycle. Right now, they don’t see Hillary having to run against an incumbent Democrat in the next cycle.
Not to mention outing a covert CIA agent for political reasons
me: uh, dimwmit; that was richard armitage
or firing U.S. Attorneys for political reasons would also fit the bill.
ME: you mean like every President b4 him?
And we haven’t even discussed lying about WMD’s in Iraq
me: you talkin’ about Clinton & Gore?
or authorizing an illegal torture program for detainees under U.S. control.
ME: prove it or shut up about it.
So, you might want to think next time before your fingers hit the keyboard before you suggest that impeachment might be the proper response.
ME: IMPEACH OBAMA NOW FOR CRIMES & MISDEAMEANORS!
Martha,
First of all, if voting for the amendment to the Protect America Act, which amended FISA, was grounds for impeachment, you wouldn’t have any of your neocon Republicans in the Senate and your main man McSame would also be gone. Secondly, if that was considered “high crimes and misdemeanors” I would think that violating FISA by establishing a warrantless wiretapping program and admitting to that publicly would surely be a “high crime and misdemeanor”. Not to mention outing a covert CIA agent for political reasons, or firing U.S. Attorneys for political reasons would also fit the bill. And we haven’t even discussed lying about WMD’s in Iraq or authorizing an illegal torture program for detainees under U.S. control. So, you might want to think next time before your fingers hit the keyboard before you suggest that impeachment might be the proper response.
We have been forced to hear the whining left cry about impeachment of Bush for almost 8 years.
We need to get a jump on it with Obama.
If he does win the Presidency why wait until January 21, 2009 to start impeachment hearings. Lets start them now.
It is obvious to anyone watching Obama that he must have committed crimes already. Since they are not yet overt crimes, but crimes nevertheless, this means we need the US House of Representatives to start investigation hearings immediately. No Presidential nominee is above the law. When 30% to 40% of America believe he is hiding something; that alone necessitates congress to act on on investigation. Isn’t that what Government is for?
If Obama votes for FISA, he has broken the trust of the people and trashed the US CONSTITUTION. That vote alone could be cause to start an investigation in the House.
Remember: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”
Martha,
Maybe you ought ot reign in your anger over Obama and direct it more properly to someone who has actually done something wrong. I am surprised that Professor Turley’s former professor’s are being so easy on O’Neill. If a student had been guilty of such activity on a thesis, I don’t think these professors would be so easy to dismiss the issue.
Obama’s support of the FISA bill means those that cried for Bush’s impeachment for trashing the Constitution for security, must now demand Obama’s impeachment, right?
I wonder how many times we will hear or read Benjamin’s Franklin’s quote “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” January 21, 2009 if Obama, God help us, wins the election.
My guess is we won’t see or hear it a single time, will we? No doubt not even Keith Olbermannnnnnnn will bring it up, nor will JT, nor any on the left. After all, this isn’t about the Constitution is it?
GOD BLESS PRESIDENT BUSH.
IMPEACH OBAMA
Well, this ought to be good for 15 minutes of feigned Keith Olbermann outrage to his little audience.