HELENA, Mont.—Having brought disgrace to the state that raised him, Sen. John Walsh, Democrat of Montana, announced last week that he would drop his bid for reelection.
Walsh only reluctantly came to accept “full responsibility” for plagiarizing large portions of his final paper at the U.S. Army War College, having first claimed that it was combat stress and the “unrelenting pressure from ‘Tiger Montanans’ to outperform his white colleagues on the Senate floor” that drove him to act expeditiously.
Amy Chua, the author of the 2011 book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” had little sympathy for Walsh—a stance she also adopted in raising her daughters were they ever to earn any grade less than an A or fall behind other students in any class, save for gym or drama.
“I might have expected this type of laziness from elected officials hailing from other Western states,” said Chua. “But John? His constituents sent their hard-earned tax dollars with him to Washington, presuming they’d get nothing less than the best, most genuine representation out there. Now John must come home in shame.”
According to Chua, Walsh acted like a “stubborn child” in refusing to apologize for his behavior, insisting only that the “research paper from my time at the U.S. Army War College has become a distraction from the debate you expect and deserve.”
“Perhaps if John spent less time fraternizing and messing about with the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging,” suggested Chua, “he would have been able to devote himself more fully to the real work of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation—and the violin.”
“Let this be a lesson to whomever is nominated to run in Walsh’s stead,” said Jon Tester, the state’s senior senator. “There are no shortcuts to academic or political excellence.”
Walsh’s replacement on the ballot is expected at the Aug. 16 convention here in the state capital. In the interim, journalists have taken to poring over the academic work of every vulnerable Senate candidate.
At press time, all copies of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s thesis, entitled “The Tortoise and the Hare,” had been reported missing from the University of Kentucky’s law library. Updates to follow.
