Ann Coulter is, in fact, a plagiarist. I'm sorry to disagree with kos, but "stealing someone else's arguments"
is, in fact, plagiarism. Furthermore, it is not the be-all and end-all of plagiarism. There's also the matter of using someone else's work without giving them credit. There is ample evidence at
Rude Pundit, the linked-to
TPM Muckraker article, and other places to indicate this.
This is a diary and not a comment because in reading the thread on kos's story, I found myself wanting to reply to thirty different people and say the same thing to each one. So I'll say it here and see if it sticks. Read past the fold for more definitions and discussion.
To plagiarize is, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary:
Originally of writers, later also of composers, artists, etc.: to take and use as one's own (the thoughts, writings, or inventions of another person); to copy (literary work or ideas) improperly or without acknowledgement; (occas.) to pass off as one's own the thoughts or work of (another).
I'm quite familiar with academic plagiarism, as I'm a teacher, and normally have to bring at least one student a semester up before the student judiciary committee. Even the weaker examples from the TPM list would raise warning flags in any college class; one or two of those in a paper, and I would require the student to re-write it before I'd grade it. Some of the longer verbatim liftings would be grounds for outright failure and reporting to the student committee. And if it happened on more than one assignment, there would be no question but failure for the entire course, plus whatever the student committee decided on.
I'll include a rather long definition from the Indiana University Student Code (not my home institution, btw), as it illuminates some of the issues with Coulter's "work":
3. Plagiarism.
Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else's work, including the work of other students, as one's own. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the information is common knowledge. What is considered "common knowledge" may differ from course to course.
a. A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, opinions, theories, formulas, graphics, or pictures of another person without acknowledgment.
b. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge an indebtedness whenever:
1. Directly quoting another person's actual words, whether oral or written;
2. Using another person's ideas, opinions, or theories;
3. Paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written;
4. Borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; or
5. Offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment.
The assertion that "the facts are the same, so the wording is the same" simply doesn't hold up in the face of a definition like this. And this definition is not unique among academic definitions. As an example, the Dickey-Lincoln dam example (Example 1 from
Godless on TPM) is pretty clear cut. There are actually a number of different ways one could re-phrase that information (but one would still need to cite it).
More subtly:
Example 4: "Performance of giant bloody tampons, satanic bunnies, three-foot feces and vibrators. -- NEA-funded performance"
Alleged Source: "Props such as giant bloody tampons, satanic bunnies, three-foot turds, and dildos." (Ibid.)
(Identified by John Barrie/New York Post)
I'll confess to not having time over lunch to track down the original Hertiage Foundation article on the NEA which this apparently comes from, but I'd suspect that there were a number of other props than just these four that were used. This kind of thing is an indication of a plagiarizing mindset, even if you find it debatable that it constitues actionable plagiarism.
Now, you may say, Coulter isn't an academic (boy, Howdy, she ain't!), so is it fair to hold her to these standards? In response, I'm reminded of the case of Brad Vice, recounted on StorySouth, where accusations of plagiarism cause the University of Georgia Press to rescind his Flannery O'Connor Prize and pulp the entire run of his book. Subsequently, his academic contract was not renewed--that is, he effectively lost his teaching position. And this, mind you, was on flimsier evidence than I find for Coulter. If Vice can lose his book over this issue, I find it unconscionable that Coulter shoud not lose hers.