"The Mayfield story was so irrelevant to Lehrer's case, in fact, that I couldn't help but wonder if he had another motive for its telling."<p>I think the technique of anecdote as wingman is a fashionable way to make a piece more attention-keeping, and certain writers have so internalised it that it pops up where it's not appropriate. Gladwell is a master of this, planting his anecdotes early and making callbacks to them a key structural feature of his writing.<p>The slate article is spot on here:<p>"There was no mention of the many other instances of fraud and plagiarism and misreporting that have been uncovered in the months since his disgrace. What about Seth Mnookin's claim that Lehrer deliberately, obviously, and knowingly gussied up anecdotes from Leon Festinger's When Prophecy Fails, and then self-plagiarized his own deceptions? Or Daniel Bor's claim that Lehrer misrepresented A. R. Luria's The Mind of a Mnemonist, then blamed his editor for the error, then repeated the error elsewhere? There are plenty of other examples to choose from; these two just stick out in my mind as being especially egregious."<p>The third paragraph of Lehrer's apology briskly gets his crimes out of the way...<p>"For those who do not know who I am, let me give you a brief summary. I am the author of a book on creativity that contained several fabricated Bob Dylan quotes. I committed plagiarism on my blog, taking, without credit or citation, an entire paragraph from the blog of Christian Jarrett. I also plagiarized from myself. I lied to a journalist named Michael Moynihan to cover up the Dylan fabrications."<p>...then there is no further mention of them. I feel this can't help but invite people to call him out on other instances of plagiarism unacknowledged in that slim summary.
The author of this article seems to think that Jonah was defending himself. But that's not what I got from his speech. I thought Jonah was admitting that he was an inherently flawed person and that, if he was going to behave better, he would require outside intervention.