John McCain accused of creating his speeches from plagiarised Wikipedia content
19 Aug 2008, 1457 Hrs

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London, August 19 (ANI): Senior U.S. Senator John McCain has been accused of copying material, some from Wikipedia, for the speeches he made on the campaign trail.

A speech McCain made about Georgia on August 11 is also said to bear strong similarities to the country's entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia compiled by the public.

Congressional Quarterly alleged that two passages were almost identical to Wikipedia, and a third of the speech bore striking resemblances.

McCain has also been accused of exaggerating or concocting the prison story, which he periodically uses in his stump speeches.

The story, which first appeared in McCain's 1999 memoir Faith of My Fathers, focused on his five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison.

In the book, McCain has revealed how one Christmas a Vietnamese guard "rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt" in his cell. The two of them stood for a minute or two in silent contemplation.

Bloggers on the liberal Daily Kos website have pointed out similarities with a tale in Solzhenitsyn's bestselling The Gulag Archipelago, in which a fellow prisoner rather than a guard silently drew a cross in the dirt with a stick.

McCain is even said to have written about his admiration for the late Russian writer.

"I do question if John McCain has, in a mix up of perception or clarity, claimed this story as his own," the Telegraph quoted one blogger as writing.

Another blogger claimed that "maybe it is all just a made up story".

The McCain campaign was not available for comment. (ANI)