Accusations about plagiarism have dogged Ann Coulter for weeks, but now it's far more serious for the syndicated anti-American columnist and author.
Well, Ann Coulter may be "liberal" in one respect, anyway. The New York Post reported Sunday that author/columnist Coulter "cribbed liberally in her latest book" and also in several of her syndicated columns, according to a plagiarism expert.
John Barrie, creator of the iThenticate plagiarism-probing system, claimed he found at least three examples of what he called "textbook plagiarism" in the new Coulter book "Godless" after he ran its text through the program.
He also discovered verbatim copying in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers by Universal.
I hate to get optimistic about such things, but this could be a career killer. News outlets don't mind giving a forum to a far-right bombthrower who recommends killing war heroes or jokes about murdering Supreme Court justices, but editors and publishers tend to disapprove when writers steal other writers' words. It's usually a deal-breaker.
-- Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report