I hope we have reached the point where we agree that the president’s various outrageous Twitter and interview proclamations are an intentional effort to divert attention from the real agenda of the Republican Party:
- Tax cuts
- Restrictions on (and elimination of) reproductive rights
- No regulation of business or guns
But what I don’t understand is the administration’s fixation on plagiarism. Setting aside Monica Crowley’s well-documented transgressions as technically outside the administration, today BuzzFeed revealed that the president copied Mitt Romney’s idea to reinstate President George W. Bush’s idea to torture terrorism suspects:
A draft executive order reviving Bush-era detention and interrogation policies that circulated on Wednesday is a revised version of the “most comprehensive” executive action on the topic proposed for the first 100 days of a Mitt Romney White House.
The original text of the document was prepared in September 2012 by then-presidential candidate Romney’s legal and policy advisers as a potential executive order, according to a source familiar with the document who provided it to BuzzFeed News and metadata accessible in the document.
But the really bizarre case of plagiarism came in the Tuesday publication of a slide deck of infrastructure investment proposals. Not only does the document copy the text word-for-word from the Colorado Department of Transportation website, but the “proposed” project has been complete for more than a year. From the CDOT website:
Part of CDOT's comprehensive plan to improve travel in the I-70 Mountain Corridor, this project upgraded 13 miles of eastbound I-70 within CDOT's existing right-of-way. The upgrades created the I-70 Mountain Express Lane—a wide shoulder that, only during peak travel periods, operates as a third travel lane.
The I-70 Mountain Express Lane is dynamically priced to keep traffic moving. Prices fall when CDOT wants to encourage drivers to use the lane and increase as the lane reaches capacity. Learn more about how Express lanes Operate.
Using the shoulder to create an express lane within the existing I-70 right-of-way during peak periods instead of adding a full lane has several benefits.
Note the Project Status: Complete text in the upper right of the website. Note also the Summit Daily’s December 2015 coverage of the express lane when it opened (“Colorado’s Most Expensive Toll Lane”) as well as the May 2016 Denver Post coverage of the results from the first year.
Then take a look at project #39 in the deck presented to the National Governor’s Association by transition officials. McClatchey reports:
According to a senior congressional aide, the Trump team put together the priority list of “Emergency & National Security Projects.” It includes cost estimates and job impact numbers.
Another congressional aide told McClatchy on Wednesday that both documents are working drafts that continue to be developed with input from the National Governors Association.
In both instances, anonymous administration officials naturally indicate the materials are not official White House documents.
Is it intentional? Is it laziness? Is it lack of ideas? Are these trial balloons? Is it an assumption that no one will notice? Is it an assumption that no one will care? Are the best and brightest in the Republican Party concentrated in Congress and think tanks and focusing their work there and avoiding the White House?
What is the point of plagiarism in a time when it is so easy to be exposed?