Rand Paul Muses About ‘Dueling” His Accusers

In the 1800s, so many Kentuckians were killing one another in duels that the Legislature saw fit to require that incoming state office holders swear an oath that they had not fought in a duel, issued a challenge for a duel or assisted at a duel, “so help me God.”

The state’s explicit ban on dueling, still on the books, may provide some comfort to those journalists who recently accused Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, of lifting wording for a speech from a Wikipedia entry about the science-fiction movie “Gattaca.”

Asked about the accusations on Sunday, Mr. Paul, a man of normally courtly demeanor, appeared to grit his teeth. The senator is considered a top Republican presidential prospect for 2016, and such charges can do harm.

“I take it as an insult, and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting,” he said, dismissing his critics as “hacks and haters.” Presumably in jest, Mr. Paul added: “If dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, it’d be a duel challenge.”

The plagiarism story was first reported on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, and the website BuzzFeed followed up, describing a speech from June in which Mr. Paul appeared to have lifted words from a separate Wikipedia entry.

Mr. Paul insisted, in an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” that he normally gives credit where it is due. He said that he often credited primary sources but, favoring extemporaneous speaking, sometimes neglected to cite secondary ones.

He promised, going forward, to do more “footnoting.”