On Plagiarism and “Monkey Math”

All the millions in her bank account haven’t helped keep Linda McMahon out of the mud this week.

On the heels of a story detailing the difficulty that McMahon is having raising money for her campaign came this breakdown from the Huffington Post on McMahon’s recent op-ed piece from the CTNewsJunkie.

After attacking fellow Republican Rob Simmons during the 2010 US Senate race for “plagiarizing his jobs plan,” McMahon took material from TransCanada’s Web site to include in her op-ed.

Of course, McMahon’s camp is defending the piece, but the whole situation begs the question: Why was is not ok for Rob Simmons to “plagiarize” material from the National Federation of Independent Business’ plans, but it’s just fine for McMahon to take from TransCanada?

There’s an even bigger problem, though, as HuffPo writer Lucia Graves pointed out: TransCanada’s claims aren’t exactly solid. Graves quotes Trevor Houser of the Peterson Institute for International Economics who said the numbers were “monkey math” that “assume that if the money isn’t spent on that project, it will get burned in the street.”

When it comes down to it, plagiarism might turn out to be the least of McMahon’s problems; relying on “monkey math” seems like a much bigger flaw for a businessperson who claims to know how to grow jobs and build our economy. 

A former CEO who laid off  workers while making millions, who got rich by selling sex and violence to children and who spent $50 million on a Senate campaign without batting an eye probably should avoid associating with monkey math. Maybe she should just stick to the really issue-oriented task of asking for votes on the new Linda bumper sticker…