If you want to know what Scott McInnis is thinking in the wake of the news that the water articles he submitted for $300,000 contain lengthy plagiarized sections, he is again talking to the Denver Post. Apparently his theory is that, if he pretends the scandal will go away, it will. His tone is remarkably chipper.
Seasoned (and might I say spicy) reporter Lynn Bartels has the interview.
To me, the most serious question is what McInnis plans to do about the plagiarism scandal.
My solution was the following: “What I think McInnis needs to do on a personal level is immediately promise to repay all the money to the Hasan Family Foundation. If he’s serious about wanting to take responsibility, that action would prove it.”
But apparently McInnis has different ideas about that. Here is part of what he told Bartels:
I made a mistake… I immediately owned up to it. It’s my responsibility. I’ve got to fix it. I’ve told my side of the story… I’d love to talk to you on jobs… I should have checked his [an assistant’s] work. I relied on his work. I didn’t check his work. But the buck stops with me. It’s my name on the door. It’s like a Ford pickup. You’ve got Ford on the truck. I’ve got McInnis on the truck. We’ll make it right… [How?] I’ve got to sit down and figure that out. Sit down and make it right… [How?] Well, we’ve got to get footnotes in there, right? I stood up Day 1. I’ve got to make it right. I take responsibility.
Yes, after he has been busted for submitting plagiarized work, he can “make it right” by adding in footnotes now.
But it turns out we already all now know whose work was plagiarized — Gregory Hobbs, currently a Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court (as the Post has reported.) So somehow I don’t think adding in footnotes now really addresses the issue.
I have to say I like McInnis’s Ford analogy. I don’t know what in the hell it means, but just the fact that he would compare himself to a Ford, under the current circumstances, is impressive in its audacity.
Unfortunately, he seems to me to be more like a Toyota with an extremely sticky gas pedal.
July 18 Update: As has been reported by People’s Press Collective and other outlets, McInnis agreed to pay back the money in full. Good move (and one that may actually allow him to remain in the race for governor). Regardless, McInnis was a weak candidate before the plagiarism scandal broke, and now he is a much weaker one.
As Donald Johnson has pointed out, McInnis “is so inarticulate that it’s embarrassing.”
But now McInnis has a much bigger problem. As John Straayer put it to the Denver Post, “You can just see the ad where the little girl comes home and says, ‘I’ve got this big homework assignment, but I want to go out and play. Daddy, will you do it for me?’ And then when her dad refuses, she says, ‘Well, that’s what the man who wants to be governor does.'”