Page 20 - Flathead Beacon // 10.29.14

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FLATHEADBEACON.COM
John Walsh walks in a parade while campaigning for U.S. Senate. COURTESY PHOTO
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Parker said that Walsh would likely be remembered for his mistakes in of- fice, not his accomplishments.
“I think his legacy, unfortunately for him, is that he will be used as a caution- ary tale for college freshmen about the dangers of plagiarism,” Parker said.
But Democrats think differently. Evan Barrett, who has been involved with the Montana Democratic Party in Montana since the 1960s, said that Walsh would be remembered for his en- tire career, including the 33 years in the military, not just his two years in poli- tics. Barrett particularly noted Walsh’s work on suicide prevention among vet- erans. Earlier this year, Walsh intro- duced the Suicide Prevention for Amer- ica’s Veterans Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill would extend the number of years that combat veterans could use Veterans Affairs services so that they could get help with things like post- traumatic stress disorder. According to VA statistics, 22 veterans commit sui- cide every day. Walsh said if there were that many soldiers dying every day in Af- ghanistan “there would be an uproar.”
Walsh is hopeful that the suicide prevention act and other pieces of leg- islation, including a bill to protect the North Fork of the Flathead River, will pass through the Senate during the lame-duck period after the election. He hopes that by then the political battles that have preoccupied the Senate would subside and they’ll be able to get back to work. Since February, Walsh has intro- duced 26 bills and eight amendments.
What’s next for Walsh is unknown, even to him. He said he has had little time to think about the next chapter of his life because he wants to “finish strong” for the people of Montana. What he does know is that he wants to return home and continue to live and work in Montana and that “if anyone is looking for a hardworking kid from Butte I’d love to talk with them.”
He also has not entirely shut the door on remaining in the public eye. He said that he often told his soldiers to “never close a door,” and if an opportunity to return to public service arose, he would certainly consider it.
“People are not going to remember me for the pieces of paper I have on the wall, be it a master’s degree or a bache- lor’s degree,” he said. “I hope people look at my service over the past 33 years in the Montana National Guard, as Adjunct General and as Lieutenant Governor. I hope they look at my career (in its en- tirety) and not just one paper I turned in in 2007 at the U.S. Army War College.”
Walsh’s short political career has been a rollercoaster ride that is rivaled by few other public officials in the state. He said his improbable rise and fall in politics is even more surprising consid- ering his modest upbringings in Butte. He said he has no regrets.
“I’ll look back at it as an experience,” Walsh said. “Not many average Ameri- cans get to serve in the U.S. Senate.”
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FROM SOLDIER TO SENATOR
1960: Walsh is born in Butte to a union pipefitter for the Anaconda Company and a stay-at-home mom.
1979: Walsh graduates from Butte High School and joins the Montana National Guard in order to pay for college.
1987: Walsh becomes an officer in the Army National Guard.
1990: Walsh graduates from the University of the State of New York – Albany and is promoted to executive officer in the 163rd Cavalry Regiment.
1993 – 1995: John Walsh becomes an instructor at the Montana Military Academy in Helena.
1995 – 2001: Walsh is an Evaluation and Readiness Officer and later a Military Support Officer in the Montana National Guard.
2004 – 2005: Walsh is deployed to Iraq as the commander of the 1st Battalion of the 163rd infantry. It is the largest deployment of Montana troops since World War II.
2007: Walsh graduates from the U.S. Army War College.
2008: Gov. Brian Schweitzer appoints Walsh as the Adjunct General of the Montana National Guard, overseeing 1,200 employees and more than 3,700 soldiers.
MARCH 2012: Walsh resigns as Adjunct General to run for Lieutenant Governor with then-Attorney General Steve Bullock.
NOVEMBER 2013: Bullock and Walsh are elected with 48.9 percent of the vote.
JAN. 7, 2013: Walsh is sworn in as Lieutenant Governor.
APRIL 23, 2013: Max Baucus announces he will not run for reelection after serving in the U.S. Senate since 1978.
OCT. 3, 2013: Walsh announces he will run for U.S. Senate to replace Baucus.
DEC. 19, 2013: President Barack Obama announces he will nominate Baucus to be the next U.S. Ambassador to China, requiring Baucus to step down early. Soon after the announcement, Walsh informs Bullock that he is interested in being appointed.
FEB. 6, 2014: Baucus is confirmed as the next ambassador to China.
FEB. 7, 2014: Bullock appoints Walsh to the U.S. Senate.
JUNE 3, 2014: Walsh wins the Democratic primary.
JULY 23, 2014: The New York Times publishes a story alleging that Walsh plagiarized large portions of a final paper at the U.S. Army War College. The school announces soon after that it will review the paper.
AUG. 7, 2014: Walsh withdraws from the race for U.S. Senate.
AUG. 22, 2014: U.S. Army War College finds that Walsh did plagiarize the paper.
OCT. 10, 2014: U.S. Army War College revokes Walsh’s master’s degree.
had Walsh trailing Daines by 16 points. However, Democrats were still hopeful that Walsh could narrow those margins and help the party retain control of the U.S. Senate.
On the afternoon of July 22, Walsh was on his way to the Senate floor for a vote when a New York Times reporter confronted him outside his of- fice. The reporter told Walsh that he had evidence the senator had plagiarized major portions of a 2007 research proj- ect at the U.S. Army War College. Entire passages in the 14-page paper had been lifted verbatim from sources found on- line and many pieces were quoted with- out attribution, including the six recom- mendations at the conclusion of the pa- per titled “The Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy.”
“It was a gut wrenching feeling when he told me that I had plagiarized a pa- per,” Walsh said last week in his office in Missoula. “It was a sickening feeling.”
The New York Times published the story the following afternoon on July 23. How the reporter discovered the pla- giarized paper was never revealed, but many observers say it was likely through opposition research. A Politico story published this fall noted that opposition research has been gaining traction in re- cent years and through September, both Republican and Democratic groups have spent more than $17 million digging up dirt on their opponents, more than five times the amount those groups spent on opposition research during the 2010 midterm elections.
Within a few days of the story break- ing, newspapers across Montana called for Walsh to end his Senate bid. As the story spiraled out of control, Walsh de- cided it was too much of a distraction. On Aug. 7 he announced he was drop- ping out of the race.
A few weeks later, the U.S. Army War College determined that Walsh did plagiarize the paper, and on Oct. 10 the school revoked his master’s de- gree. Walsh’s name was removed from a plaque listing the students who received master’s degrees in 2007.
Walsh initially blamed the incident on post-traumatic stress disorder, not- ing that one of the soldiers who he led in Iraq had committed suicide just weeks before the paper was due. Last week, he said he respected the school’s decision to revoke his degree and acknowledged, that by the college’s definition, his paper was plagiarized. But he maintained that it was a mistake.
“Every statement that was in the pa- per, everything I took from somebody else, I used them as a reference, it was just that I left some quotation marks out,” he said. “I just didn’t properly ref- erence those quotations.
“It was a mistake,” he added. “I made a mistake on a paper.”
W
alsh said if not for the plagiarism story, he would have been neck- and-neck going into the final weeks
of the campaign against Daines. He is not the only one who believes that.
“John Walsh is a good man and there are very few people that I have served with that have his qualities and prin- ciples,” said Montana’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. “(What happened) is a shame because I think he was going to win that Senate race. I really do.”
Parker, the political scientist at MSU, said that while Walsh’s military service was a political asset, it did not necessarily mean the soldier-turned- senator had the “chops” for public office. Parker said numerous service members have found it tough to leave the struc- ture of the military for the free-for-all of politics, including people like former