Romanian newspapers are reporting that their country’s education minister, Ion Mang, has resigned after embarrassing revelations of plagiarism—a news story that is suspiciously similar to one published last month by Hungarian newspapers. In fact, the stories are practically identical if you replace “President Pal Schmitt” with “Education Minister Ion Mang” and “Eastern European country Americans know nothing about” with “Eastern European country Americans know nothing about except that Nadia Comaneci is from there.” Please show greater originality in your future scandals, Romania. Plagiarism is always wrong, but meta-plagiarism is meta-wrong. UPDATE: Apparently there’s another plagiarism scandal brewing in Hungary—against a Socialist this time, which I guess means Fidesz wants payback for their man Schmitt. Which raises the question: How many plagiarism scandals can one region possibly produce?
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