Update: According to TMZ, the McCain campaign is (not surprisingly) blaming an intern.
Oh man. This is a priceless intersection of politics and food. David Weiner, from Huffington Post, breaks the news that many of the recipes listed on the “Cindy’s Recipes” page on John McCain’s campaign site (and listed under the header “McCain Family Recipes”) are lifted, word-for-word, from the Food Network website.
Recipes for foods are pretty similar, no matter who is making them. That’s why it is so odd that she would try and pass these recipes off as her own. If she had just listed these recipes or dishes as “Cindy’s Favorites” instead of “Cindy’s Recipes” there wouldn’t be an issue. Or even if they are listed under “Cindy’s Recipes” they could have just cited Food Network as the source.
Serious Eats reports that the McCain website has already taken the recipes down. But who in the age of Google, Google Cache, and bloggers with too much free time isn’t aware of how easy it is to get caught lifting stuff word for word?
Check out one of the identical, and I mean WORD FOR WORD identical recipes listed on the McCain campaign website:
The question now is, why do something like this? Lazinesses by a staffer? Or is there actually some political strategy involved? Does Cindy McCain think she needs to prove herself as adequately domestic? Is it really that important to proclaim that she has her own recipes for things? Is it that awful to just admit she uses recipes out of a book or off a website like most of America probably does?
This piece of information may have just swung my vote against John McCain for good. I’ll admit that I am terrified of his fiery dedication to pre-emptive war as a foreign policy tool that could lead to thousands more American deaths…but that fact was just making me LEAN against voting for him. But now we find out he has a wife who plagiarizes recipes? Yikes. I can’t possibly vote for the man now.
Images via Care.org, hnn.org and Huffington Post.
17 responses so far ↓
1 Nora // Apr 15, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Maybe her surgeon accidentally snipped the saggy muscle that helps us to remember not to plagiarize.
2 Soupy Trumpet Blasts from the Web 4-15-2008 | Soupy Trumpet // Apr 15, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[...] Cindy McCain Plagarizing Food Network Recipes [...]
3 Extreme Mortman » Cindy McCain’s Recipe For Lamb-asting - Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Take Politics Seriously Again // Apr 15, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[...] our promotable friends over at So Good; Oh man. This is a priceless intersection of politics and food. David Weiner, from Huffington Post, [...]
4 barred owl // Apr 15, 2008 at 3:56 pm
this is SO funny to me because just last night i was browsing through cole slaw recipes on foodnetwork.com and the site kept suggesting that i look at the Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw!
Then i was skimming this post and those words jumped out at me again!
HA!
plagiarism stinks. i always credit the recipes on my blog (barredowl.wordpress.com – including the cole slaw i ended up creating based on the ingredients in my fridge) and so does every other respected food blogger out there.
For shame Cindy…
5 Leigh // Apr 15, 2008 at 11:19 pm
A lot of people really don’t feel that recipes are any sort of intellectual property. I know, it’s ridiculous. Someone made those recipes up, tested them, tweaked them, ate dozens of failed attempts, until they were perfect (or nearly) for us. To take credit for someone else’s work is awful.
Even just changing an ingredient or two fails to give you rights to post a recipe as your own (in a perfect world, anyway). So many just BIZARRE scandals this political season. And we’re still months away from the election! What will be next?! I do not want to know; maybe I’ll disconnect the internet and sell my TV until December. Maybe March next year, to give time for recount squabbles to be settled.
6 shatraw // Apr 16, 2008 at 1:10 pm
i think the best part is the Cindy wants us to think that “Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw” is an old family recipe, dating back to the early generations of McCains who escaped to the terrible potato family with just the clothes on their backs and this tasty recipe which was clearly created 15 years ago by some hack chef in a California seafood chain restaurant.
7 shatraw // Apr 16, 2008 at 1:12 pm
potato famine. ugh… i can’t type.
8 Ruca Bangs // Apr 16, 2008 at 4:00 pm
the best part is that this changed Eick’s vote! Damn, son, your political standards are… well lets just say you have special interests.
9 Eick // Apr 16, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Yes it *changed* my vote. There was no sarcasm at all in that aspect of the post.
10 Garnold // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Eick, how could you change your vote? You’re so easy it hurts!
NEWSFLASH: Obama claims to enjoy Burger King’s fries more than McDonalds!
Sigh. Guess I’m voting indepedent.
11 Juliana // Apr 18, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I thought you were a Republican??
12 Eick // Apr 19, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I was a Republican. As recently as 5 or 6 years ago. But a lot of people used to be Republicans until the current Republican party went batshit insane with pre-emptive wars, torturing people, spying on their own citizens and spending our national debt into obilivion.
13 Ooops, Cindy McCain's recipe for recipe plagiarism - City Hall - Election 2008 - Comcast.net Community Forums // Jun 4, 2008 at 8:14 pm
[...] http://www.sogoodblog.com/2008/04/15/cindy-mccain-plagiarizing-food-network-recipes/Â [...]
14 Cindy McCain Caught Plagiarizing Recipes AGAIN | So Good // Jun 16, 2008 at 5:47 pm
[...] just don’t learn. You may remember that in April, So Good helped get the word out that Cindy McCain was busted for plagiarizing recipes from the Food Network. The recipes were taken word-for-word from the Food Network website, and [...]
15 Counter Statistics // Nov 1, 2008 at 1:56 pm
[...] 4Referring URL: http://www.sogoodblog.com/2008/04/15/cindy-mccain-plagiarizi [...]
16 Taki // May 14, 2009 at 10:00 am
Food for Thought: How do you know the Food Network didn’t plagarize Cindy McCain?!
17 Miranda // Oct 21, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Im doing a discussion on plagiarizm in my Engish Comp class and I was wondering if there was proof that Mrs. McCain was the one that actually took the recipe from hershey or was it her “good friend” that took it?
Leave a Comment