Perfesser Journalism Rand Paul Will Start His Own Journalism Licensing School, Of Which He Will Be President And Sole Member

Perfesser Journalism Rand Paul has some thoughts on journalism, and whether you are good at it. (Spoiler: you are very very bad at journalism! So bad! Somebody needs a spanking! Unlike Rand Paul, who is undoubtedly forming a Journalism Licensing Board for himself to be the president and sole member of   right this very minute.) 

Here is Rand Paul, for real, following Maddow's and then Buzzfeed's teeny tiny exposes that Rand Paul copies every word he ever says, including the words "Rand" and "Paul." Well Rand Paul is not standing for you hacks and haters smearing him and whatnot with the journalism for which he, Rand Paul Journalism Professor of the Rand Paul School of Journalism Professoring, would give you an "F." 

“I’m being criticized for not having proper attribution, and yet they are able to write stuff that if I were their journalism teacher in college, I would fail them,” he said.

Oh, Rand. 

First off, apparently we have to say this again , because we feel like maybe Rand Paul actually doesn't know the problem is not that he "didn't footnote." The problem is he took giant swaths of words, sometimes up to like 1100 of them, and said them as if they were his own. It's not about "indenting." It is about quotation marks, certainly, because when we use other people's work, we put them in quotation marks.

(Unless we are a blog, in which case we do indent, and that takes the place of the quotation marks. Oh, and somewhere in there should be words saying who said the thing.)

(Like so: "said the person who said the thing.")

OK. Now that is over, we will just say that we actually ARE Perfesser Journalism, and we never get tired of reminding you people of that. And we had a student we failed. Do you know why we failed him? Because he was so bad at plagiarizing that he accidentally left in the phone number and url of the website he was plagiarizing from!

Do you know what that student did then? Besides threatening us? (Man, the similarities are uncanny, aren't they?)

He said it was our fault, for not teaching him how to indent! The fact that a two-page paper was one paragraph (1) of original stream-of-consciousness borderline illiterate sadness, and then the remaining 12 paragraphs were copied word for word from a website about solar panels -- again, including the "contact us to buy now!" -- was intentional . It was satire, he said! We had failed to teach him, he said! He was gonna tell the university we offered him pot, he said!* Then he puffed up and blocked the door of our office so we couldn't leave. Again, very much on offense! Very Mister Doctor Senator Wee Bantam Rooster Rand Paul!

Here is another thing that happened, with Journalism. One time we were at a Los Angeles journalism drinky thing, and we may have overimbibed! When we got home, we sat on our front porch and keened at our then 14-year-old-or-so son -- really wailed -- about how much we had sacrificed for him, our dear and only child. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND," we wept. "WE ARE THE GREATEST JOURNALIST! WE ARE THE GREATEST WRITER IN THE WORLD! WE COULD HAVE BEEN A WAR CORRESPONDENT! RIGHT NOW WE COULD BE IN AFGHANISTAN!" Our son there-there'd. He was sweet once.

The next morning, our young man pointed out wisely, "Mom, who the fuck wants to go to Afghanistan?"

As often happened, he was correct.

So why don't you think about THAT next time you are bragging about being the greatest journalist, Rand Paul!

The End.

 *For clarity, no, we did not offer him pot.