March 24, 2008, - 11:22 pm
Wikipedia Chief Admits Doctoring Girlfriend’s Entry–Did Jimmy Wales “Date” Monica Crowley, Too? UPDATE: Marsden Denies, Says Wikipedia Editors Reviewed Entry, No Relationship w/ Marsden Beyond 1-Night
By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales denies these reports, which he says are completely false. He says that he only met with Marsden once, that she was never his girlfriend. He also says that he never edits Wikipedia entries, that when Rachel Marsden contacted him before they ever met, complaining about her entry on Wikipedia, that he sent it to an independent committee of Wikipedia editors, and that he had nothing to do with it. Based on what he’s said, I find his case very credible, and I believe him. ****
I almost never link to Wikipedia. The site is bunk, pure fiction. And it’s anti-conservative. In the few instances in which accurate info is actually posted there, the person who posted it gets marked for “vandalism”–while the entry reverts to its original fiction because some dopey slacker guy self-appointed “editor” smoking a doobie doesn’t like it.
That is, unless you’re sleeping with the guy in charge, Jimmy Wales.
Wikipedia founder and chief, Wales, got caught doctoring his girlfriend’s, er . . . ex-girlfriend’s entry on Wikipedia, and didn’t admit it until he was outed by a number of online websites and got caught. **** UPDATE: Wales says Marsden was never his girlfriend and that an independent committee of Wikipedia editors reviwed and changed her entry, not him. ****
Wales’ ex-girlfriend, pseudo-conservative Rachel Marsden, falsely accused one man–a swimming coach she was harassing–of rape. Initially, he lost his job over it. Another man, she stalked and then hijacked and monitored his e-mail account. But you’ll read a much more sanitized version of that on her Wikipedia entry (yes, in this rare instance I’m linking to Wikipedia). That’s because Wales–while sleeping with her–secretly changed and “cleaned it up” to her liking. **** UPDATE: Wales says Marsden was never his girlfriend, that he only met up with her once, and that an independent committee of Wikipedia editors reviwed and changed her entry, not him–and that it was done before he ever met her in person. ****
And strangely, the same thing has happened with another pseudo-conservative, Monica Crowley, who claimed that as a teenager she was a foreign policy advisor to Richard Nixon. (Uh-huh. Who needs Kissinger when you have little (then teen-aged) Monica?) Oh, and there’s that little issue of a whole article that Monica Crowley plagiarized that ran in the Wall Street Journal in 1999. The Journal apologized and never ran Crowley’s “work” again. That’s because “Dr.” Monica Crowley actually didn’t know enough about her former boss (on whom she “wrote” several books), Nixon, so she ripped off word-for-word an article written by the great British conservative writer Paul Johnson.
Since then, several prominent parties–including a former conservative professor of hers who actually did, in fact, advise several Presidents–have raised questions about whether her Ph.D. thesis and books on Nixon were fabricated and plagiarized. And I believe that they are. (Since she’s better looking than Jayson Blair, she’s gotten away with it.)
But that’s not how it reads in Wikipedia. That’s because apparently Crowley, herself, lied and doctored her Wikipedia entry, sanitizing it to claim that she only copied one phrase, “with credit,” when in fact, she knows that she copied five whole passages, as documented by former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Timothy Noah, here and here. Unfortunately, whenever anyone edits Crowley’s Wikipedia entry to reflect the truth–that she actually did steal a whole article from Paul Johnson and presented it as her own work–the edits are labeled as “vandalism” and the changes are erased. Check the discussion section of her entry, and you’ll see the complaints about this. Ditto for the link to Noah’s 2nd article on Monica Crowley’s blatant plagiarism, which Monica and her Wiki friends keep deleting and labeling “vandalism.”
So, is Monica Crowley sleeping with Jimmy Wales, too? Don’t put it past her. Remember, she stole from Paul Johnson. So her morals aren’t exactly “conservative” ones (conservatives believe in property rights, remember? liberals believe in usurping for the common Monica “good”). She’s not a conservative. She just plays one on TV . . . and rips one (or more) off in print, then lies about it.
These are the passages Crowley stole from Paul Johnson, as documented by Timothy Noah. Do you believe that Wikipedia’s/Monica Crowley’s claim that she only copied two words from Johnson is correct?:
From Paul Johnson’s “In Praise of Richard Nixon,” Commentary, October 1988:
“There was none of the personal corruption which had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson, let alone the gross immoralities and security risks of John F. Kennedy’s White House.”
From Crowley’s “The Day Nixon Said Goodbye,” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 1999:
“There was none of the personal corruption that had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson or the base immoralities and outrageous security risks of the Kennedy and Clinton White Houses.”
Johnson:
“Nixon … consistently underestimated the unscrupulousness of his media enemies and their willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta.”
Crowley:
“Nixon, though always suspicious of his political enemies, consistently underestimated their ruthlessness and willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta.”
Johnson:
“So great was the inequity of Nixon’s downfall that future historians may well conclude he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and in subjecting the nation to the prolonged paralysis of a public impeachment, which at least would have given him the opportunity to defend himself by due process of law. But once again his patriotism took precedence over his self-interest …”
Crowley:
“Given the inequity of Nixon’s downfall, historians may yet determine that he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and subjecting the country to a prolonged process of impeachment, which would have given him the chance to defend himself by due process of law. His allegiance to the country, however, overrode his political self-interest.”
Johnson:
Characterizes the 1960 election as “one of the most corrupt elections of modern times.”
Crowley:
Characterizes the 1960 election as “one of the most corrupt elections of modern times.”
[This assertion, unlike the others, has some merit, and it’s possible the two arrived at the phrase independent of one another; but given the other examples cited here, that likelihood is not great.]
Johnson:
“By a curious paradox Richard Nixon was one of the very few people who emerged from the Watergate affair with credit.”
Crowley:
“Ironically, Nixon was one of the few people who emerged from Watergate with credit …”
[Johnson is British, Crowley American; why would she, on her own, use a Britishism like “with credit”?]
As Timothy Noah reports, the Wall Street Journal clearly thought Crowley ripped Paul Johnson off:
The Journal ran an editor’s note that read as follows: “There are striking similarities in phraseology between “The Day Richard Nixon Said Goodbye,” an editorial feature Monday by Monica Crowley, and a 1988 article by Paul Johnson in Commentary magazine . . . Had we known of the parallels, we would not have published the article.”
I think you can read between the lines.
So, again, I ask: Is Wikipedia dictator Jimmy Wales dating (euphemism) “Dr.” Monica Crowley? And if so, how long until she sells his belongings on ebay the way Rachel Marsden is?
**** UPDATE: Again, Wales says Marsden was never his girlfriend and that an independent committee of Wikipedia editors reviwed and changed her entry, not him. ****
Tags: a foreign policy advisor to Richard Nixon, Again, Commentary, conservative writer, Debbie Schlussel, editor, foreign policy advisor to Richard Nixon, investigative reporter, Jayson Blair, John F. Kennedy, media enemies, Monica Crowley, online websites, paralysis, Paul Johnson, Professor, Rachel Marsden, Richard Nixon, swimming, swimming coach, the Wall Street Journal, Timothy Noah, Wales, Wall Street Journal, White House, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales
People who take wikipedia seroiusly…..ROFL.
I only use it just for some info on sports, videogames, and cartoons.
Squirrel3D on March 25, 2008 at 12:55 am