Margaret Wente ain't feeling the love

After being reprimanded by her employer, The Globe and Mail, for plagiarism, Margaret Wente felt the need to defend herself in that same paper, in this piece here. Her defense would best be described as pathetic, but don't take my word for it, as these are the top rated comments of her readers:

New Toronto

Margaret, you would have done yourself and the Globe a favour had you simply plagiarized Fareed Zakaria's contrite apology of a few months ago rather than write a passive aggressive non-apology apology.

ishmaeldaro

And so continues the campaign to smear Carol Wainio as some undisciplined "blogger" with a personal vendetta against Wente. In fact, she was very fair in her analysis and came to the only logical conclusion.

tweakyd

So Margaret is the victim in this?

She should write for Rob Ford

Mark Shore

"But I'm also sorry we live in an age where attacks on people's character and reputation seem to have become the norm."

--------------------------------------------

I'm sorry, but were all the snide, denigrating dismissive remarks directed towards any number of public and private figures in your columns over the years not your own?

I'm not sure you're helping yourself here.

caviartothegeneral

You are, in fact, proven to be a serial plagiarist. You should be fired.

synon

The only saving grace from having read this disgraceful and petty response is that you have dug your own grave with it.

Dr Jitters

Seriously? You are supposed to be a professional journalist. The 'I cobbled it together with scraps of paper I had lying around' response makes a mockery of the term "Journalistic Integrity". Laziness 1, Integrity - 0

John Baglow

Good God, that was defensive and weak.

BackroomBob

Shorter: "Im sorry.... that I got caught... How dare you catch me."

Tony Kwan8

"But there is a sentence from Mr. Gardner's column that also appears in my column. The only explanation is that I put it in my notes, then put it in my column."

That is not the only explanation.

It would be more plausible that you recorded this excerpt from Mr. Gardner's column and subsequently forgot that it was a quote if: 1) you are in the careless and indeed highly unprofessional habit of taking notes from other sources without recording those sources; and 2) there were not many other recorded instances of you committing the same "error."

You attempt to dismiss the existence of other such instances by referring to Carol Wainio's "obsessive list," as if it were the product of an irrational vendetta. That is not the case. I invite other readers to read Ms. Wainio's analysis ad decide for themselves (mediaculpapost.blogspot.ca/2012/09/margaret-wente-zero-for-plagiarism.html).

Yes, Ms. Wente you have been extremely careless in committing plagiarism on numerous occasions. You undoubtedly did so out of a sense of impunity due to your exalted status at the Globe and the fact that you were never previously held to account.

Those days are over.