Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog

In my ironic ramblings about plagiarism, it’s possible that I buried the lead. The Goeglein case was open and shut about as fast as you can get. But the question that lingers is what’s the story with this Jeffrey Hart character? I was just reading The Dartmouth Review’s wrap-up story by A.S. Erickson and something odd hit me:

When contacted by CNN, Professor Hart said, “I told him I was flattered he’d used it. It doesn’t damage him in my estimation at all. I’m glad he spread the word.” ….”A bit of plagiarism should not trouble this White House at all. The Dartmouth Review publishes a lot of very good material, and should take a bow.”

To his credit, this is exactly the point I was making in my last blog (though I meant it ironically). But honestly, why would an avowed Obama supporter like Hart be so forgiving of a Bush apparatchik like Goeglein? On a purely human level, it doesn’t make sense. He should be going ballistic. (for example, our friend Debbie Schlussel rightly takes considerable umbrage when Sean Hannity plagiarizes her)

The only explanation is that something was funny with his original story in the first place and he didn’t want to draw attention to it. He probably figured it was one part of one article - the whole thing would blow over. He had no idea at the time that Goeglein had also plagiarized everyone from The Washington Post to the Pope, and it would become a huge story. As I pointed out in my last blog, it could be that Hart had plagiarized the quote from Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy from fellow Dartmouther Asst. Deputy Sec. of State Thomas Callahan.

On the other hand… One astute reader has pointed out that the Callahan piece was written by “Lisa Birzen, ‘03″. Giving her the benefit of the doubt that she wrote it as a freshman (apparently she was a math major who with “a passion for Japanese culture”), that would still be a year after Hart wrote his story (assuming the date on his story really was from 1998).

Did Birzen also plagiarize from Hart? Maybe, but her use of the Rosenstock-Huessy line (complete with the same misspelling that tripped up Hart and Goeglein) is in a first-person quote from Callahan that involves the memories of his father, who apparently had Rosenstock-Huessy as a professor sometime in the mid ’40’s.

“My father was class of 1947 at Dartmouth and used to quote to us one of his favorite professors, a philosophy professor named Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey: ‘The goal of education is to form the Citizen. And the Citizen is a person who, if need be, can refound his civilization.’”

That might imply that Callahan was sitting at his computer Googling old Dartmouth Reviews when he got called by Birzen and just completely made up a story about his own father. But why would a reputable member of Sec. of State Colin Powell’s team do that?

More likely is that Callahan - or his father - had written that quote somewhere else (maybe nowhere Googlable - maybe in some Dartmouth paper) and Hart had copped it. But let’s give Hart the benefit of the doubt, too. I just had my associate Eli send a note to the Dartmouth Review. They’re on the ground at Dartmouth and can dig through the records better than anyone to sort this out. (unless of course, they’re covering for Hart - who founded the Dartmouth Review in his living room - but again, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Odd, though, that Hart, whose tenure at Dartmouth may have overlapped Rosenstock-Huessy would have misspelled his name in two different places. I suppose that’s why he was an English professor, and not a spelling professor.)

Who knew there’d be so much intrigue at Dartmouth?

Meanwhile, other links to the Goeglein story:

The Opinion Mill
The Buzz Bin
Ivy Gate
Shakesville
Common Sense