Sen. Rand Paul responded to Rachel Maddow busting him twice for plagiarizing from Wikipedia by calling her a hater, but it is really Paul who hates Maddow’s standards for honesty and facts.
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Paul responded to getting busted by Maddow for plagiarizing from Wikipedia by claiming that it wasn’t plagiarism, because he never claimed that the movie was his work. Sen. Paul then called the MSNBC host a hater, “This is really about information and attacks coming from haters. The person who is leading this attack, she’s been spreading hate on me for about three years now, and I don’t intend for it to go away. But, I also don’t see her as an objective news source.”
Maddow replied to Paul, “This is about you lifting other people’s words verbatim and pretending that they’re your own. This is about you lifting entire sections of a website, inserting them into your own speeches, and then passing them off as your own original thoughts. This is something that high school students know not to do, and you are presenting yourself as a potential candidate for president. This has nothing to do with me…Senator. somebody else’s published words ended up in your speech with attribution. How did that happen? Do you understand that that is a problem?” Maddow described Paul’s explanation as incoherent, and said that she had a feeling that this might not be the end of it.
Rachel Maddow is right. Rand Paul is a serial plagiarist. She has the facts on her side. Rand Paul embodies the Republicans of today, who dispute every fact. In Republican terms, an objective news source is Fox News, or Drudge, or Rush Limbaugh. Unless the allegation came from conservative media, it has no merit. It’s just haters being haters.
Republicans now live in a post reality world, where there are no facts. If a Republican elected officials needs some facts, they make some up. If the media tries to call them out, they scream liberal bias for as loud and as long as they can. If there are no realities and no facts, there can be no honesty. The fast way to lose a game with no rules is to be honest. Honesty gets punished in the Republican Party. Mitt Romney became the Republican nominee in 2012 because he demonstrated a willingness to say anything to anyone at any time in order to get elected.
Republicans see all of us who demand honesty and facts as haters.
Since there is no longer a shared agreement on right and wrong, we should all probably sit back and wait for Sen. Ted Cruz to deliver his I have a dream speech about defunding Obamacare sometime soon.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
