Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Imagine picking up your morning newspaper. Above the fold you see a huge photograph of your father, the mayor, in the village square at high noon — with his pants down. It’s a coffee spitting moment. Unless he’s sunning his flagpole at gunpoint, there’s no defense for his behavior. You’re stunned, aghast, mortified, tempted to get blotto in record time.
Questions abound. Was this his first exhibition? Was he arrested? Fundamentally he’s a good man, honest and hard working — but can he still do his job? Will voters still support him? Should he resign as mayor?
While you’re still reeling, your sister, not quite in full panic mode, calls. “My god, my god, my god. What should he do? What should we do? Is there anything we can do?”
That’s the predicament in which Montana’s voters find themselves with Sen. John Walsh following the New York Times’ report that he submitted a heavily plagiarized, 24-page Strategy Research Project paper, [The] Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy, to the Army’s war college in partial fulfillment of his Master of Strategic Studies degree. The NYT’s report is devastating, powerfully convincing. It sure looks like he’s guilty as hell.
After a preliminary analysis concluded that a high probability of plagiarism existed, the USAWC announced that on or after 15 August, an academic review board will convene to examine the matter. If the review board finds Walsh guilty of serious academic misconduct — and the board will — the USAWC could revoke his masters degree, or impose a lesser penalty such as ordering him to rewrite and resubmit the paper. Assuming no additional instances of plagiarism emerge, I think there’s a fair chance he’ll be allowed to keep his degree.
But if credible evidence emerges that he’s plagiarized on other occasions, his degree, his reputation, and any remaining chance of winning election to the Senate probably go up in smoke. Even a plausible false accusation might administer a political coup de grâce.
How willing are voters to forgive Walsh’s sins, and in particular this sin, which may have an explanation but not a morally acceptable defense? The choice between Steve Daines and John Walsh is much more than a choice between two men. It’s a choice between two political parties, two very different political philosophies, two very different visions of America. A candidate’s warts tend to be vanishingly small compared to a political party’s warts.
In a sense, Montana’s voters, Democrats in particular, are in the position of someone who’s just learned his, or her, spouse had an affair. Can — should — the marriage be saved? Can the affair be forgiven? Need it be forgiven? Is a divorce in order?
Influential Missoulian columnist George Ochenski favors a divorce, writing this morning that “…the honorable thing for Walsh to do would be to admit the plagiarism, resign and allow another candidate to replace him on the November ballot. Should he fail to do so, Walsh and the Democratic Party will likely be beaten for cheatin’.” Ochenski is not the only person who believes that Walsh should step aside.
Monday, 11 August, is the deadline for withdrawing from the general election ballot (PDF). You can bet the ranch that Walsh’s campaign is conducting emergency polls to learn how much love the voters still have for him. It will be a lot less than they had two weeks ago, so his pollsters also will be asking whether and how he can regain the voters’ trust and affection. While his pollsters are calling, his legal and military advisors will be trying to save his degree, and to minimize any lesser punishment. And his fundraisers will be trying to learn whether, and under what circumstances, he can continue raising enough money to be competitive. Meanwhile, he appears to be hunkering down and working hard at being a Senator while his campaign staff gobble Prozac.
Suppose he withdraws from the general election ballot: then what? Early and absentee voting begin on 6 October, ten weeks from now. With whom would he be replaced? Denise Juneau? Dave Wanzenried? Dirk Adams? John Bohlinger? It doesn’t matter for the Senate, for it’s fantasy to believe any replacement would have a chance of winning.
But it is possible that replacing Walsh with a cleaner candidate would minimize the damage to down-ticket Democrats, John Lewis among them; so if the emergency polls report he can’t win in November, and I suspect they probably will, he may be asked to step aside for the good of the party. As a career soldier, he understands that kind of sacrifice and will make it if asked.
Fundamentally, John Walsh is a decent man, a professional soldier decorated for bravery in battle, a man defined by his commitment to public service. But home from war, he committed an inexplicable act of plagiarism, a tragic lapse that may end his political career. May history judge him fairly.