Atrios this week blogged about Republican Rep. Gibbons being a plagiarist, lifiting word for word from a 2003 speech by Alabama state auditor Beth Chapman, for a nasty divisionary Lincoln Day speech Gibbons delivered in Nevada. Later that day Gibbons apologized for using the copywrited speech, but not for being a plagiarist.

Gibbons is the Republican representing nearly all of rural Nevada's 2nd CD. If you look at the map of the state, though Gibbons represents 2/3rd's the population, it's about 90% of the state. For 2004, the WH pushed Gibbons to run against Ried, Gibbons balked, but he is a likely candidate for becoming Governor of Nevada next year.

Now, usually, politicians don't write their own speeches, infact very rarely anymore. Instead, the communications director has a speech writer that prepares the speech. This lift is so blatant (Chapman's speech is 21 paragraphs long, of which Gibbons used 15 paragraphs nearly word-for-word), with whole paragraphs of plagiarism occurring, that I'm suspicious if this is the first time Gibbons has done this number. Hopefully, the Nevada Democratic Party is taking in some research time to go back through the speeches made by Gibbons, and find out if there are others in which he's found to be a plagiarist. Outing a couple of cases of would greatly damage Gibbons, and serve to highlight the venom that Gibbons has spewed.

Gibbons is on the defensive, as you can see by his letter to the editor today in which he tries to backtrack and revise the remarks made-- that those against the war should be sent to the frontlines of Iraq to serve as "body shields" for the enemy.

That's insane. No wonder Hannity is trying to coverup for Gibbons, and Gibbons is trying to revise his remarks, saying, In my remarks in Elko, I never suggested that anyone who disagrees with me should be sent to the front lines in Iraq. Yea he did, in fact Gibbons said "I say it's just too damn bad we didn't buy them a ticket".