Imitation Going Beyond Flattery

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it can erode credibility, particularly if the imitators are old enough to know better. “The cleric who wants to build a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero claims that ideas from his book were incorporated into President Obama’s landmark Cairo address to the Muslim world last year by one of the drafters of the speech,” Patrick Goodenough reported on CNSNews.com. “Feisal Abdul Rauf made the remarks during two media interviews in Egypt last February.”

“I am not going to hide from you that one of those who participated in writing the speech transferred parts of my book A New Vision for Muslims and the West, which he referred to U.S. interests converging with the best interests of the Muslim world,” Rauf said.

Meanwhile, “A recent study published by Michigan State University’s Education Policy Center appears to contain a significant amount of plagiarized material,” Michael Van Beek of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports. The author of the study, Sharif M. Shakrani, is a professor at MSU.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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