Scott Brown Accused of Plagiarism

Scott Brown has a new headache on his hands.

One week after he took heat from women’s groups for his joke about Elizabeth Warren’s attractiveness, the Massachusetts Republican is being accused of plagiarism.

American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal Super PAC, unearthed an autobiographical passage on Brown’s official Senate website that was lifted verbatim from Elizabeth Dole’s site, language that the former North Carolina senator had used in a speech to kick off her 2002 campaign.

A Brown spokesman admitted that the language was the same, but said that it was a mix-up that occurred during construction of the site. The spokesman told the Boston Globe, which first reported the story, that Dole’s website was used as one of the models for Brown’s site, and that the text in question was "inadvertently transferred without being rewritten."

"It was a staff level oversight which we regret and is being corrected," said spokesman John Donnelly.

Liberals, of course, see things slightly differently. Rodell Mollineau, president of American Bridge 21st Century, had this to say to the Globe: "This kind of plagiarism makes me wonder how many things about Scott Brown are really genuine. … The fact that he can’t come up with a personal values statement of his own, that he has to steal someone else’s, I think is very instructive of what kind of politician he is."

Here’s part of the passage in question, which was removed from Brown’s site earlier this week:

"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference. From an early age, I was taught that success is measured not in material accumulations, but in service to others. I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive change through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe."

(A Democratic source sent along screen grabs of Brown’s page and Dole’s page to Politico.)

Politico notes that other pages on Brown’s site also "seem to have language from Dole as well," including an intro message on a page about an intern program. But Brown’s camp told the Beltway publication that it could not comment on that for the time being.