Rand Paul is right that Rachel Maddow was kind of “making a mountain out of a molehill” when she gleefully went through each line the senator recited from Wikipedia during a recent speech. Surely most politicians have committed worse deeds than plagiarizing a lengthy description of Gattaca. (And Stand and Deliver!) But when questioned by Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, Paul didn’t even appear to understand what he was being accused of. He noted, “I didn’t claim that I created the movie Gattaca,” and dismissed Maddow, saying, “The person who’s leading this attack, she’s been spreading hate on me for 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.” Paul didn’t have the opportunity to learn about the perils of using Wikipedia as a source in college, but he and his staff should go over this. Here’s a good place to start.
Rand Paul’s Wikipedia Plagiarism Defense: I Never Said I Wrote Gattaca
