Most worthwhile is this blast from Philip Nobile, the co-author who withdrew from the project that became The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.
Nobile has developed into a kind of pop history nemesis - harpooning source abuser David McCullough and plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin, among others.
Goodwin's book on Lincoln, not yet released, is the basis of Spielberg's forthcoming Lincoln movie (starring "Darkman" Liam Neeson). It was also unpublished in 2001 when the Spielberg movie deal was announced and generated a lot of controversy, especially on rumors that "the so-called 'Great Emancipator' [w]as a manic depressive racist who nearly lost the American civil war."
This was preposterous in 2001 - the Goodwins of the world don't gore any academic oxen nor trample scholarly vinyards - and although we don't know what's in the film any more than we did in 2001, we can expect Nobile to be on the case:
Once the toast of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Goodwin now does plagiarism shtick with David Letterman.
Nobody believes that a former Harvard professor with a staff of paid assistants and all the time in the world was somehow flummoxed by a confusion of handwritten quotes and handwritten paraphrased notes.
Plagiarists, like gamblers, tend to be recidivist.
