If you’re not already keeping score at home, star CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria has been embroiled for months in a widening plagiarism scandal. The Week provides a useful summary. Zakaria’s “many ethical lapses have been chronicled by the pseudonymous bloggers @crushingbort and @blippoblappo,” with the result that “seven of his Newsweek columns . . . one Slate column, and four Washington Post columns . . . have been affixed with editor’s notes essentially admitting to acts of plagiarism. Among Zakaria’s current and former employers, that leaves only Time and CNN that have yet to respond to the latest charges.”
The Scrapbook can now reveal that an apology may be forthcoming. We are in receipt of what look like excerpts from a script ready for insertion into the Fareed Zakaria GPS teleprompter. Readers will have to judge the authenticity for themselves.
“FZ: So I’d just like to take a moment, before we wrap up today’s show, to address the latest charges of plagiarism that have been leveled against me. To my supporters out there, to those who doubt me, to those who just aren’t sure, I have prepared some remarks— and I assure you, I alone prepared these remarks. These are, completely and fully, my own words, my own thoughts, just me, Fareed Zakaria. . . . To be, or not to be? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. My fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill o’ beans in this crazy world. There’s no liberal America or conservative America; there’s the United States of America. When I’m watching my TV and a man comes on to tell me how white my shirts should be, but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me. . . . I can’t get no . . . satisfaction . . . no, no, no. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Grape Nuts. I’ve tried Grape Nuts. I’ve bought the box, put ’em in the bowl: no grapes, no nuts, what’s the story? The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Camptown ladies sing this song, doo dah, doo” [transcript cuts off].
