The Liberals Drop a Plagiarism Bombshell on Harper

Unbelievable. Or not.

I knew he was a puppet of the imperial empire but this shows that he was, more correctly, the ventriloquist's dummy.

In one segment, both leaders are heard saying:

"It is inherently dangerous to allow a country, such as Iraq, to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behaviour. If the world community fails to disarm Iraq we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them."

The clips then jump to Howard saying:

"As the possession of weapons of mass destruction spreads, so the danger of such weapons coming into the hands of terrorist groups will multiply. That is the ultimate nightmare which the world must take decisive and effective steps to prevent. Possession of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by terrorists would constitute a direct, undeniable and lethal threat to Australia and its people."

According to the Hansard transcripts, Harper said:

"As the possession of weapons of mass destruction spreads, the danger of such weapons coming into the hands of terrorist groups will multiply, particularly given in this case the shameless association of Iraq with rogue non-state organizations. That is the ultimate nightmare which the world must take decisive and effective steps to prevent. Possession of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by terrorists would constitute a direct, undeniable and lethal threat to the world, including to Canada and its people."

Someone had better be proofreading that book he's writing about hockey very carefully.

And the Tory reaction?

Reached by CBC News following Rae's appearance, Harper's spokesman Kory Teneycke dismissed the issue as irrelevant, saying the release of the video was an "act of desperation" from the Liberal campaign a day ahead of the first of the leaders' debates.

"I'm not going to get into a debate about a five-year-old speech that was delivered three Parliaments ago, two elections ago, when the prime minister was the leader of a party that no longer exists," Teneycke said.

"We're going to focus on the economy, which is the No. 1 issue Canadians want to talk about. We're not going to be distracted by attacks from the Liberal war room."

Run away! Run away!

Related:

Just how much does Steve like John Howard's style? Check out this September article from The Australian: Howardism lives on

You can read the Jeffrey Simpson editorial mentioned in that piece here.

Mea culpa resignation update:

Tory strategist resigns for plagiarism in Harper's speech

A Conservative war room strategist apologized and resigned from the election campaign Tuesday after he admitted to plagiarizing parts of a speech delivered by Stephen Harper on the Iraq war in 2003.

"In 2003, I worked in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition," Owen Lippert said in a statement released by the Conservative campaign Tuesday afternoon.

"I was tasked with - and wrote - a speech for the then leader of the Opposition. Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader's speech. Neither my superiors in the office of the leader of the Opposition nor the leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so."

Sure. Right. Uh huh. Buh bye.

A man with this type of academic and political background was really that sloppy? And has he also resigned as a senior policy advisor for CIDA or will that job be waiting for him if the Tories win?

Just an FYI for you book shoppers out there: you might want to think twice about buying this particular title authored by Lippert - Competitive Strategies for the Protection of Intellectual Properties. Perhaps the premise of that book was to see how much you could (competitively) plagiarize while getting away with it?