Scott Brown Is Apparently Bob Dole's Wife
"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference," reads a message on Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown's website. Weirdly, former North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole said the exact same thing in her Senate campaign announcement speech in 2002. Which leads us to wonder: Is Scott Brown Bob Dole's Wife?
A careful investigation of all the facts has revealed that no, Scott Brown is not married to Bob Dole. He is, however, probably pretty embarrassed at the fact that his website lifted, verbatim, an entire paragraph from a speech Liddy Dole gave in 2002:
"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference," said the message from Brown, which was removed later yesterday. "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."
You can read the speech on Google Books here; the plagiarism was uncovered by a liberal political action committee called American Bridge 21st Century and reported out by Alex Katz of the Boston Globe.
And how did something like this happen? According to a Brown spokesman, the whole thing was a "staff level oversight" that resulted in the passage being "inadvertently transferred without being rewritten." Sure is lucky that the opening line "I am Mary and John Hanford's daughter" was—inadvertently, we're sure—omitted! And also the line that follows: "I am Bob Dole's wife."
