This lowlife, deplorable is running for senate in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. https://www.witf.org/2022/09/09/doug-mastrianos-disputed-dissertation-on-a-world-war-i-hero-sgt-alvin-york-is-made-public/
The dust-up over his dissertation is much ado about the wrong thing. This isn't about errors or shoddy work. When I was finishing up my thesis at Leicester, I mentioned to my advisor how the process of writing it made me ponder about all the mistakes, all the missed opportunities regarding my Union dissertation. He immediately scolded me to never look back! What's done is done. In this case, two things concern me about Mastriano's dissertation, neither of which are deal-breaking. First is the assessment that his paper didn't really break new ground, that it was mostly a re-telling of a known story, and the new information offered was built on shaky ground and shoddy research. Okay. Sounds like a dissertation to me. Second, I'd be concerned about supervision. There was no one on the committee qualified to assess significant portions of it relying on a set of theories lying outside the major discipline. When you go to your viva, you know more about your subject than anyone else in the room. But you shouldn't the only one who knows what you're talking about. (On another note, John Bear often told the story about his wife, Marina, when she attended her viva at Vanderbilt for her PhD there. Her advisor introduced her and said, "Marina is her to defend her dissertation." Marina quipped, "No, I'm here to explain it." Love it!) But neither of these should bring into question the degree or the work to earn it. There are no accusations of academic dishonesty or plagiarism. No indication he didn't do the work. Personally, I can think of three HUGE omissions in my Union dissertation. And no, I'm not going to tell you what they were.
Thank you for the thoughtful, accurate, and interesting post. While I agree the criticism may be missing the mark from the academic point of view, that doesn't mean it's the wrong thing from the political point of view. If the criticism sticks or works then it is the "right thing" from the political perspective.
This was the mistake Democrats were making regarding criminal prosecutions of TFG and others: that it would be perceived as political. Well, IT'S ALL POLITICAL! You can't avoid the very context in which those crimes occurred. Now, if the media would just get away from their "two sides" efforts. There were two sides to politics for all of our history. But not anymore. There are things being done in the political arena that have no standing legally, ethically, morally, or historically. Not everything is Yang. There's some Yin going on out there and it needs to be called what it is. Personally, I do not support Mastriano. And I get why this is being used against him. But outside of politics, this is nothing. It's just another dissertation on a very dusty pile of them.
I didn't know that Mastriano had a PhD. Now that I know it I actually hold him in higher regard. (Although I still think deplorable lowlife is an appropriate description.) I don't know what the stories are in Pennsylvania about the governor's race. But if folks in Penn are impressed with his credentials then the best political move may be to "swift boat" him. Swift boating is a term used to mean an unfair political attack. It is a term born during the Kerry versus Bush campaign. Kerry had some advantage over Bush when it came to his military service. Bush turned this asset into a disadvantage by flat out lying about Kerry's military service. Turning this big asset into a liability. Now Kerry messed up by ignoring the bogus attacks but that is a different topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating#:~:text=The term swiftboating (also swift,unfair or untrue political attack.
Thanks for pointing out that he's running for governor. My bad for saying senate. That would be Dr. Oz and the incumbent Lt. Governor. Mastriano doesn't have a chance against Josh Shapiro. He's done exceptionally well during his two terms as PA's AG. More than a dozen prominent Republicans have endorsed Shapiro.
That's great news! I'm fond of our democracy and Mastriano is one of the lowlife deplorables () threatening our democracy.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/unb-investigation-student-trump-1.6832071 The pressure intensifies. Edit: And a more detailed article with quotes https://www.pennlive.com/news/2023/05/questions-about-doug-mastrianos-thesis-spur-university-fraud-probe-reports.html?outputType=amp
A professor once explained to me that the electronic database of doctoral degree holders in Poland (yes, there is a such a publically accessible database here) has many PhD holder entries that do not provide any reference to the title of the defended dissertation, whereas other entries feature the title. Apparently, it is because many doctoral dissertations frequently involved Marxist-Leninist drivel and the elderly PhD holders are now embarrassed by the nasty communist propaganda that they have published under their names. But no one seriously thinks that these PhDs from communist “Polish People’s Republic” should be withdrawn, even people (like myself) who are critical of the pseudo-scholarly contributions of these individuals. Investigations ought to take place when we’re dealing with allegations of plagiarism. Otherwise, I am skeptical of these attempts at post-defense fact-checking by the university. There is a place for further discussion in academic guild journals. I would love to see the specific academic fraud evidence instead of the constant references to the “Trump-supporting” individual.
I've also been frustrated by an inability to find the letter with the specific 213 allegations. Here are some of the specifics: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/doug-mastriano-phd-thesis-trump-b2209329.html
