I see Monica Crowley has gotten some internet attention. Few people are shitholes like Crowley. Whatever spite or rancor she garners is well deserved.

She’s one of the media pranks of our time. Did you know she was a plagiarist? Ah, it’s true. As a young woman, she sought out a disgraced Richard Nixon’s attention and got it. She became his aide-in-shade. She then made her villager bones writing about the blackheart ex-pres.

Her fides were plenty papier mache’. In August 1999, for the Wall Street Journal, she wrote a piece called “The Day Nixon Said Goodbye.” She plagiarized a far better writer, prolific Brit Paul Johnson, throughout. Slate:

From Johnson’s “In Praise of Richard Nixon,” Commentary, October 1988:

“There was none of the personal corruption which had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson, let alone the gross immoralities and security risks of John F. Kennedy’s White House.”

From Crowley’s “The Day Nixon Said Goodbye,” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 1999:

“There was none of the personal corruption that had marked the rule of Lyndon Johnson or the base immoralities and outrageous security risks of the Kennedy and Clinton White Houses.”

Johnson:

“Nixon … consistently underestimated the unscrupulousness of his media enemies and their willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta.”

Crowley:

“Nixon, though always suspicious of his political enemies, consistently underestimated their ruthlessness and willingness to sacrifice the national interest in the pursuit of their institutional vendetta.”

Johnson:

“So great was the inequity of Nixon’s downfall that future historians may well conclude he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and in subjecting the nation to the prolonged paralysis of a public impeachment, which at least would have given him the opportunity to defend himself by due process of law. But once again his patriotism took precedence over his self-interest …”

Crowley:

“Given the inequity of Nixon’s downfall, historians may yet determine that he would have been justified in allowing events to take their course and subjecting the country to a prolonged process of impeachment, which would have given him the chance to defend himself by due process of law. His allegiance to the country, however, overrode his political self-interest.” . .

Johnson:

“By a curious paradox Richard Nixon was one of the very few people who emerged from the Watergate affair with credit.”

Crowley:

“Ironically, Nixon was one of the few people who emerged from Watergate with credit …”

The New York Times:

Mr. Johnson also wrote, ”In thus rehabilitating himself, Nixon displayed courage, endurance, persistence, patience, skill and — there is no other word for it — magnanimity. The greatness of his heart is something his enemies never dreamed he possessed, and it helps explain their misunderstanding of his nature.”

Ms. Crowley wrote: ”Throughout his self-rehabilitation, Nixon displayed courage, endurance, patience and skill. But perhaps most importantly, he showed great magnanimity, a quality that his enemies never counted on and that helps explain why they so misunderstood his nature.”

Reached by telephone on Friday afternoon, Ms. Crowley, the author of ”Nixon Off the Record” (Random House, 1996) and ”Nixon in Winter” (Random House, 1998), agreed that ”there are clear similarities in the language. I have wracked my brain, and I can honestly tell you that I have not read” Mr. Johnson’s article.

How dumb is that? Wall Street journal canned the article. They canned the shithole, too.