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David Weiner

David Weiner

Posted: April 14, 2008 10:30 PM

McCain "Family Recipes" Lifted from the Food Network


UPDATE, 1pm EST, 4-15:

It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain's recipe theft for John McCain's campaign website to scrub away the offending pages (screen-captured below). That's 12 hours more than it took Cindy to come up with the recipes... (In the meantime, you can still see the listing of recipes as it originally appeared on the campaign website through the Google cache.)

It also turns out that Mrs. McCain submitted "her" Passion Fruit Mousse recipe to the New York Sun for an article that ran on January 16th. Just like on the McCain campaign site, there is no sourcing other than McCain herself...

CNN (and TMZ) are now reporting that Recipegate was the work of an intern, and that according to McCain's campaign, the whole thing is a "low-level unpaid staff debacle."

Personally, I'm not sure how an intern can be responsible for messing up the McCain "family" recipes. Did the intern lose Cindy's recipe box only to haphazardly try to replace them with Food Network recipes? If only we could all steal and lie and lay it off on the unpaid help.

***

Original McCain "Family Recipes" post:

What will they call it? Farfallegate? The Rosemary Chicken Dome Scandal? Perhaps something with the ubiquitous Rachael Ray in it.

It seems that Cindy McCain, John McCain's perfect, blonde beer-baroness wife is about to find herself painted as the latest example of plagiarism on the campaign trail.

This past Sunday, Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site.

On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." Ms. Handel quickly realized that some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.

At least three of the "McCain Family Recipes" (below) appear to be lifted directly from the Food Network, while at least one is a Rachael Ray recipe with minor changes.

See for yourself... and Bon Appetit (click on each image to enlarge):


Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw

2008-04-14-mccainfoodnet1.jpg

Passion Fruit Mousse

2008-04-15-mccainfoodnet2.jpg

Farfalle Pasta with Turkey Sausage, Peas and Mushrooms

2008-04-15-mccainfoodnet3.jpg


UPDATE: The Cindy McCain "Family Recipe" plagiarism story, broken here, has been picked up by Politico. Wonkette and Gawker also covered the Cindy McCain recipe story. Even the L.A. Times mentioned the McCain family recipes.

Follow David Weiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daweiner

UPDATE, 1pm EST, 4-15: It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain's recipe theft for John McCain's campaign website to scrub away the offending pages (screen-captu...
UPDATE, 1pm EST, 4-15: It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain's recipe theft for John McCain's campaign website to scrub away the offending pages (screen-captu...
 
 
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06:18 PM on 04/20/2008
This reminds me of the episode on 'Curb Your Enthusiam' about the origins of the Cobb Salad when the character on the show falsely claimed his grandfather invented the salad and shrewd larry david investigated to find it was not true..LOL
03:50 AM on 04/20/2008
Whatever she cooks must be merinated in beer of some other sauce. Nobody was fooled
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HUFFPOST PUNDIT
Tulka2
Solidarity. Courage. Humor.
06:54 PM on 04/18/2008
I am standing for Obama, okay? I have to say though, i feel for Cindy about this tempest in a tea pot. All the times i have shared a favorite recipie and failed to say it was clipped out of a magazine, Yikes!
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
rosal
JUSTICE always wins
04:22 PM on 04/18/2008
And I though she would be more interested in cooking bland foods. Does McInsane still has all his teeth?
10:33 AM on 04/18/2008
In the sporting world, they call this "Par for thecourse."
11:34 PM on 04/17/2008
I like Fallafel-Gate. Oh right, that's Bill'O.

----
Ahh!! TV!!! Ruuunnnn!
02:48 AM on 04/18/2008
Just more of the McSameOld. The closer you look at the mythical aurora surrounding these people and the more you see it looks like half-baked ideas stolen from someone else.

If McSameOld didn't hand out favors to the media moguls he wouldn't be afforded such favorable coverage.
glesslib
Fox proves you can fool people all the time.
09:26 PM on 04/17/2008
Didn't the lady steal drugs from the charity she founded? Lifting a few recipes hardly seems like a crime.
02:49 AM on 04/18/2008
I didn't hear about that can you elaborate?
02:21 PM on 04/18/2008
From the Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/3ucwkv :
"In 1991, Sen. McCain became embroiled in the "Keating Five" scandal, in which five senators were probed for ties with a thrift executive. The Arizona lawmaker wasn't charged with any ethics violation.
That same year, Mrs. McCain underwent two back surgeries, and she said she became addicted to painkillers. She resorted to stealing some drugs from a medical charity she had started and using others' names for prescriptions, according to news reports at the time.
"I was trying to be the perfect woman," Mrs. McCain said in interviews at the time. "That was the darkest period of my life."
The Drug Enforcement Administration began an investigation of Mrs. McCain in 1994, but she avoided prosecution by paying a fine, performing community service in a soup kitchen and joining Narcotics Anonymous. She had to close her medical charity.
"Cindy faced up to her addiction," Sen. McCain said.
Since coming clean, "I've never been secretive about it at all, because [talking about addiction] is part of the recovery process," Mrs. McCain said. "It's part of my life; it has made me a better person and certainly made me a better mother."
Like she says, she's..."a better person now". :-)
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
NotWaldo
07:36 PM on 04/17/2008
Cindy McCain : “Sometimes I wake up grumpy. Other times I just let him sleep!”
03:54 PM on 04/17/2008
I gotta tell ya, the scariest thing about this whole campaign season has been that stepford wife-ish Cindy McCain. That lady gives me the willies.
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MiraMcB
Stop whining! You lost!
03:30 PM on 04/17/2008
Get real, People! When do you think was the last time Cindy McCain was actually in a kitchen cooking anything? And who even cares? I'm not a McCain fan, by any means, but this is STUPID. So they decided to do something fuzzy and homey on their web site and put up a bunch of recipes... Squillions of average janes go to those web sites every day and pull off the same recipes. THAT'S why they're on the web! So you can copy them. I do it all the time and make those recipes my own... so WHAT??

But that's not really what's annoying me. What's annoying me is the GOTCHA Game the media keeps playing with ALL these candidates. Same thing in the debate last night. Why are we not discussing IMPORTANT stuff? Like the war, national health care, illegal immigration, etc. etc. etc.

I DON"T WANT TO HEAR CRAP LIKE THIS ANY MORE!!!!
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
JessWonderin
08:02 PM on 04/17/2008
Seems McCain has not given us any "recipes" for military or economic success other than warmed up left overs from the Bush Kitchens of Hell - so when his "domestic' partner and FUTURE First Lady steals public recipes from the Food Network to pass off as "Old Family Traditional Favorites" reflects not only on the gross dishonestly of this group but the low expectation of the public to accept more lies from a RepubliCON.

McSame: Came in SECOND to Bush - Defeated and wrong in 2000, what makes him BETTER today?

Is that "IMPORTANT" enough????
02:54 AM on 04/18/2008
It may be stupid, but as the republikans consistently demonstrate it goes to the character thing. This is an election about judgement. McSameOld ran out on his first wife and into Cindy's arms. Of course the attraction of all that money made it a lot easier to overlook the blemishes.
12:43 PM on 04/17/2008
Typical Repuke---screw up and take no blame! She'll be perfect in the White House-God forbid!
01:24 PM on 04/17/2008
Keith said it and I agree - those recipes look pretty elite! Blaming an intern is bad form all around. Once again, it's so stupid - recipes???? She says so little, she's like a blank slate. Let's not get caught up in recipes - how about McCain leaving his first wife (when she was injured and needed help) to start an affair with the tart - more food reference (Cindy)! No wonder he won't support the new G.I. bill - he must have something against injured people. You're hurt? I am so outta here!
12:37 PM on 04/17/2008
The cookie monster did it!
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
mairs
Four legs, good.
12:04 PM on 04/17/2008
At the very least they should have scrambled the lines a bit. Rewritten the procedures into their own words. I mean that was so damn lazy of them to just copy and paste. They're not even good plagiarizers.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
StrayTalk
Keep the old comment format.
10:46 AM on 04/18/2008
At the very least they should have scrambled the lines a bit. Rewritten the procedures into their own words. I mean that was so damn lazy of them to just copy and paste. They're not even good plagiarizers. I AGREE
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
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11:22 AM on 04/17/2008
Some women are sexy, some sultry,some slinky and some slithery.
10:51 AM on 04/17/2008
That picture says it all- those hungry slavering raptor eyes of Lady MacBeth II, I Mrs. McCain II