Plagiarism Claims Take Down Germany's Darling Defense Minister

Few political careers have been launched with such fury and gained so much traction in such a short span of time as that of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. In just two years, the 39-year-old aristocrat, who is married to an heir of Otto von Bismarck, rose from a virtual unknown to Germany's defense minister and most popular politician, loved for his honesty, honor and conservative values. It's a fittingly extraordinary twist, then, that Guttenberg's rising star has been extinguished as the result of a scandal surrounding not sex or money or some other typical form of political corruption, but plagiarism. Accused of having stolen large parts of his doctoral dissertation in what has become known as the Copy, Paste Affair, Guttenberg announced his resignation as minister on Tuesday, leaving his political future uncertain and the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) devastated.