A Wikipedia editor emailed Political Wire to point out some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia. Given the closeness of the words and sentence structure, most would consider parts of McCain's speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia.John McCain has been serving on the Foreign Affairs committee in the Senate for years, and yet his staff has to turn to Wikipedia to write a speech about Georgia for him. Is that a sign of "experience" and being "ready to lead?" Or is it a sign of winging it and last-minute cramming? Personally, I feel that our President and his staff should put a bit more time and effort into learning about international conflicts than the average college student, but that's just me.
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It should be noted that Wikipedia material can be freely used but always requires attribution under its terms of use. Whether a presidential candidate should base policy speeches on material from Wikipedia is another question entirely. - CQ Politics
Jonathan Singer over at MyDD gets the last word.
But taking a step back, it's always interesting to think about these stories from the perspective of the shoe being on the other foot -- what would the reaction have been had this story come out in relation to the other candidate. In this case, what would have happened had Barack Obama, not John McCain, been caught cheating on the 3 AM test by appropriating from Wikipedia? Heck, what would have happened if a college student, or even a sixth grader, had been exposed for such actions? - MyDD
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