Hack to Basics

Little Mickey Kaus is back to his old tricks again. The plagiarists' pal is criticizing Howie Kurtz for not commenting on Bernard Weinraub, a NYT journo who lifted paragraphs from a website for a showbiz story in the Times. Kaus wonders why Kurtz wrote about a Denver Post plagiarist but is silent on Weinraub.

If you click on the link to Howie's story, you see the Denver plagiarist was guilty of 13 separate incidents of plagiarism, which might make his misdeeds more newsworthy than a single incident by Weinraub. But Mick doesn't have a hardon for the Denver thief like he does for the Timesman. (Kaus could try to find 12 more incidents (or even one) by Weinraub, but that would require actual effort.)

And why isn't Kaus kvetching about Howie's lack of coverage for Slate's own resident web-plagiarist, Margo Howard? Does Kurtz have to clear all his plagiarism stories with Kaus to make sure he's writing about a Kaus enemy?

And let's not forget Kaus' own friendship with the woman who invented cut-and-paste journalism, Ruth Shalit. I don't recall Kaus waxing moralistic when any of her many thefts were disclosed.