Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., wasn’t going to be in the Senate for much longer anyway. But he stuck around long enough to suffer one final indignity.
On Friday, the U.S. Army War College announced that it had formally revoked Walsh’s Masters degree, following a months-long investigation into allegations that he had plagiarized his thesis paper. Walsh, whose term is up this year, officially dropped his reelection bid in August, not long after the allegations first came to light. His very brief tenure in office — which began just earlier this year, following the retirement of his predecessor, Democrat Max Baucus — will end in January 2015.
In a Friday statement, Walsh said he accepted the War College’s ruling “with great humility and respect for the U.S. military.”
“I apologize to all Montanans for the plagiarism in my 2007 paper, and I am prepared to live with its consequences,” he said. “I may not be a scholar but I am proud to have been a soldier who has served Montana and this great nation for 33 years in uniform. “ Walsh originally received his Master’s degree in 2007, when he was 46. According to a New York Times investigation which took place around the time he dropped out of the race, Walsh plagiarized extensively in his 14-page thesis paper, at one point lifting an entire page’s worth of material from another source.
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog. Recommended
