Montana Democratic senator John Walsh saw his degree from the Army War College revoked on Friday, months after allegations that he plagiarized his master’s thesis pushed him to abandon his election campaign.
Walsh was appointed in February to replace Montana Democrat Max Baucus after the latter left to become ambassador to China, and many had high hopes that the Iraq War veteran would bring a measure of foreign-policy gravitas to the Democratic party.
But in July the New York Times reported that Walsh lifted as much as one-quarter of his 14-page thesis from other authors, submitting the plagiarized work to the Army War College in 2007 as the last step towards a master’s degree.
Walsh repeatedly denied the obvious, but Democratic bigwigs in Montana reportedly pressed the now-toxic candidate to step down and let another Democrat take a shot at the Senate. On August 7, the senator caved, announcing he would not seek reelection in November. State representative Amanda Curtis was tapped as his replacement.
The Montana Democrat announced the college’s decision himself. ”Though I disagree with the findings made by the War College, I accept its decision with great humility and respect for the U.S. Military,” he said in a statement. ”I apologize to all Montanans for the plagiarism in my 2007 paper, and I am prepared to live with its consequences. I may not be a scholar, but I am proud to have been a soldier who has served Montana and this great nation for 33 years in uniform.”