The Wikipedia Candidate

It looks like John McCain is getting his foreign policy "expertise" from teh interwebs. In a speech given today about the growing war between Russia and Georgia, some of his lines appear directly plagiarized from Wikipedia.

A Wikipedia editor notices some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia. They appear similar enough that most people would consider parts of McCain's speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia.

First instance: "one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion" (Wikipedia) vs "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion" (McCain)

Second instance: "After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis." (Wikipedia)

vs.

"After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises." (McCain)

In other doddering McCain news, his aides have curtailed his cell phone use because his habit of adopting the opinion of whomever he last spoke to tends to take him "off message."