plagiarism charge hits Seattle pol

If there's an excuse for plagiarism, Seattle mayoral candidate James Donaldson is going to find it:

Seattle mayoral candidate James Donaldson rolled out a 32-page plan of his ideas for Seattle last week. He called it, "James Donaldson's Plan for Seattle."

But parts of Donaldson's plan are copied verbatim from a similar plan released last year by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who, like Donaldson, is a former NBA player.

Donaldson's campaign consultant, Cindi Laws, said she modeled the plan after Johnson's.

"People make these assumptions about athletes being dim ... so I looked at how it had been done," said Laws. "Kevin broke out of the pack by issuing a policy-heavy plan."

Laws said the similarities simply show that Donaldson knows a good idea when he sees one.

He just forgets the part about giving credit where it's due, right?

Throwaways:

1. When asked his opinion of Seattle's proposed plastic bag tax, Donaldson said, "Hold on, I'm Googling it."

2. Obviously, the way to combat stereotypes is to live them out. A warning, though: cognitive dissonance has a wide radius.

3. Remember, it's not the quality of the plan. It's the combined weight of its policies.

Update: Not the only time Donaldson's gone cut-and-paste happy, I'm afraid.