Lefty blog Think Progress received a tip the other day that one of John McCain’s foreign policy speeches was a “plagiarized” version of a speech  Adm. Timothy Ziemer gave in 1996. After a quick search of Nexis and no request for a comment from Team McCain, Think Progress decided to go ahead and blatantly accuse McCain of plagiarism.

One problem: If anyone plagiarized anyone else, it was Ziemer ripping of John. See, after TP’s accusation aired, McCain’s campaign pointed to a speech he gave…in 1995.

After we published the post, the McCain campaign contacted us and pointed to a speech given by the senator in 1995, which appears on McCain’s Senate site. As soon as we were alerted to the error, we rushed to publish a correction.

Perhaps such a large and popular blog as TP should’ve asked Team McCain for a comment before it went off and falsely accused him of ripping off someone else’s work. TP didn’t allude to plagiarism, or question if it was original. Here’s what the original post said:

These lines are not McCain’s own. As TP reader 5th Estate discovered, they were in fact taken largely from a 1996 speech by ret. Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer.

It goes on to say McCain has “stolen” Ziemer’s words. Those were direct, non-inquisitive accusations of plagiarism.

Michael Calderone writes:

While I’m all for transparency on blogs, and have made mistakes corrected by readers, it’s remarkable that Think Progress would allege that the Republican nominee for president plagiarized a speech without putting the two speeches before the campaign for comment. Or, apparently, checking the candidate’s website first.