Plagiarism: The Other Shoe Drops

Remember way back a few days ago, when Hillary Clinton was criticizing Barack Obama for plagiarism? Sen. Obama's explanation -- that a friend and supporter, Masschusetts Governor Deval Patrick, had supplied him with the useful text -- seemed to tamp the controversy right down.

Now, an Indiana blogger exposes a serial plagiarist in an interesting locale: the White House. The offender has already copped to the most recent offense, while commenters to the blog are digging up earlier, similar incidents.

But, it's a Friday, and the Bush White House is so last year.

Comments

[JAUG]

Hmmm, sometimes Obama sounds a little too JFK. Cadence, delivery, timing and verbiage. I bet if we look hard enough, just about all law-ticians and journalists have plagiarized.

[thePoliticalBreeze]

It isn't okay for Obama to plagiarize. Fortunately, he didn't do it.

The material in question was provided to Obama by a friend, who suggested that Obama use it to defend against the ridiculous arguement that "words don't matter". This is not plagerism. If it were, a whole slew of speech writers would be out of jobs.

[Dajo]

Wrong,

It is plagerism by definition plain and simple.

Mind you there is nothing wrong with using someone else's exact words like Obama did so long as he gives credit to the originator, which Obama failed to do at the time and then only did so after he got caught.
You can't retroactivly give the credit and then obsolve yourself from your crime whether or not the person who said the words in the first place gives you permission to use the more not. It is not the use of the words that is the crime. It is the failure to give credit to the originator.The simple fact is Obama did not do what he shouuld have done.

People get caught stealing things all the time and they often offer to pay for the stolen items after they get caught.Sometimes the person they stole from does not press charges or even gives the thief permission to keep the property. This doesn't change the fact that a crime was committed. The criminal should not be praised for paying after the fact.
Likewise Obama should not be praised for his actions after the fact.

[duck47]

I think when both Obama and Duval Patrick gave their respective speeches, each while under critcism for being all talk and no substance, they were implying that they were comparable to JFK, King, etc. Basically implying that anyone that questioned their abilities was desecrating sacred ground. I found that aspect nauseating before I found out about their shared "playbook". Obama also converted Duval Patrick's slogan "Yes we will" to " Yes we can" and is using other elements of Duval's campaign. Obama's feigned sincerity and "holier than thou" spiel made it legitimate for Senator Clinton to take issue. It's most unfortunate that the word plagiarism ever got used because it served as a distraction from what was really brought in to question.

I feel that many people who would normally not accept this behavior are making an exception for Obama. It doesn't seem normal or healthy to me. Since the speech brought Duval's successful campaign into the picture, I did some checking into how he's doing as governor of Massachusetts. I found the Boston Globe's coverage very informative. I'm not saying that because Obama is using Duval's campaign strategy that he will have the same failed outcome. Some of the attributes of a good campaigner translate to the attributes of a good leader but those are not the "borrowed" ones.

[Citizenofreality]

So in essence you have just argued with yourself and found that you were wrong.

[snuh]

Harry, sorry to go off-topic. Seeing you share the same dais as Christopher Hitchens was a trip, it was by far the best Real Time episode in years. I was hoping it was worth a post, I'd love to read of the experience.

[Ono4Hoopono]

snuh, thanks for providing the opportunity for me to go off-topic while staying on YOUR topic-How great it was to see Harry on Real Time with Bill Maher last night.

Harry, you added a great deal to the show last night, and I was really glad you were there, and I appreciated the positive things you said about Obama. Like snuh, I also felt it "was a trip" to see you there with Hitchens, ready to bring some reality in case he went off into another one of his "lying in wait" style attacks on Bill, like the one about al-Zarqawi's presence in northern Iraq as some kind of ass-backward justification for the war.

Also off topic, I wanted to add that I expressed some disillusionment and disappointment on one of your recent posts that seemed to be undercutting Obama, but I see from last night that it was a rush to judgment on my part, and I appreciate your contribution to the debate in the town square, as it were, and indeed you have considerable street cred. I hope to see you on Real Time more often, and enjoy your PBS radio show, "Le Show," tremendously.

[clevelandchick]

I wasn't the least bit shocked to learn of plagiarism from the White House - it's been the common practice for the Bush Administration to choose officials based on their political loyalty over their experience, scholarly achievement and skill-set.

I mean come on Harry, Arabian Horse Judge for head of FEMA? And have you noticed that pretty much every speech of Dubya's sounds like every one he's ever given? We do not have or have had the brightest group running things, just a bunch of industry yes-men and idealogues that aren't even smart enough to come up with their own ideas.

It always cracks me up when the media pundits wax so adoringly over how brilliant the Neocon Bunch is, if it weren't for Milton Friedman and Leo Strauss they wouldn't know how to wipe their ass.

[3fingerbrown]

The Internet has ushered in a golden age of plagierism. Ask any high-school student.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Well, let's keep our fingers crossed, Harry, that the preznutz doesn't try to show us, before January, just how 'this year' he COULD be.

Excellent 'guest work' last night.

[ndolomar]

it's friday, and the cheapest gasoline i can find to fill my car so i can get to work, only to earn just barely enough money to pay for gasoline to fill my car is nearly $4 per gallon. i don't care if he ripped off shakespeare or the holy bible; i want my country back and i want to be able to afford to live in it. right now, who copied whom doesn't really matter to me.

[AlyoshaKaramazov]

Well, as this guy was one of Karl Rove's right-hand men, and is said to be instrumental in getting W. re-elected in 2004, by wooing the Religious Conservatives, I'd say it is extremely important that a little-known Indiana blogger outed his illegal activity. This means that any one of us can do the same thing to John McCain or any of his lackeys, and help bring these people down for good as the criminals they are.

And the less we see of Republicans in D.C. the better off we ALL are.

[sanglug]

Our Democratic 'leadership' has been trying to run out the clock for two years instead of holding this administration accountable for its abuses. Oh to have that kind of power while nobody is paying attention...

[fogbreath]

many years ago i read an article in a portland, or weekly about a band named "Group Du Jour".
in it one of the band members was quoted as saying to the audience before the first set"all this music is original" to which a band mate added"yes, none of these notes have been heard before".
so every time i hear of another plagarism story, i thnk of that.
Of course, that is such a thing as plagarism.
however political candidates who can afford it have others write their speeches and i have yet to see a credits list given before or after.
not so many years ago i also heard a story on an npr morning news program about the "declaration of independence" in which the woman who was telling the story to the news person pointed out that several of the phrases in it had been around since the early days of the enlightenment.

[SamThornton]

According to the Journal-Gazette article, Tim Goeglein, the busted White House official "...has worked in the Bush White House since 2001 as the Bush administration's liaison to religious organizations."

Does anyone else see some sort of pattern here? Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age.

[DLSteinhardt]

The difference being that Obama did not plagiarize; he had permission to use what he used, while Special Assistant to the President Timothy Goeglein simply stole what he appropriated for a newspaper column.

[kimmer123]

As a professor at a large university, I feel qualified to speak to the issue of plagiarism. By any academic standard, Obama"s re-use of Patrick"s speech is plagiarism. It doesn"t matter that Patrick allowed him to use his arguments (almost word for word). In fact, this would be a case where BOTH parties would risk for academic censure. If a student allows another student to copy from, or recycle his/her paper, BOTH individuals would be considered for academic misconduct. For full disclosure, I should note that I am a Hillary supporter. But to me, this issue goes well beyond politics. As an academic who has to deal with academic misconduct, it disturbs me that people are so willing to overlook Obama"s poor judgment. What message does this send to my students?

[LittleBrother]

What message does this send to my students?
___________________________________________

Plagiarism isn't parsed the way criminal charges are, but it could be-- everything from "involuntary plagiarism" to "consensual plagiarism".

In any case (and I'm not on the Obama bandwagon), in the context of political oratory, Obama's post-credit and Patrick's permission effectively ends the controversy. It's not as lame as Joe Biden surreptitiously ripping off Neal Kinnock.

A grown-up politician and candidate delivering one of thousands of stump speeches is not equivalent to a student turning in "work" presumed to be the student's original work. Put another way, the absolute wrong of plagiarism in academic life doesn't apply in the tragically mendacious culture of politics.

Tell your students that when THEY run for national office, they can and will spew just about anything along the way. If you're that hung up on the "we must think of the CHILDREN" aspect of this story, keep in mind that the children will suffer far more if any of the OTHER putative "original thinkers" in the race win.

[Ono4Hoopono]

Professor, what Obama did was akin to two writers helping each other brainstorm. And the writer-relationship he had with Deval was fully disclosed in a newpaper article and by Obama himself many times. If you are saying Obama is plagiarizing, then you are saying that any politician who was fed a phrase and doesn't credit their staff member who provided it is plagiarizing. Are we to assume that you think Hillary wrote the "Xerox" line she threw out at the debate, or what about her many other orchestrated soundbite moments; or that she wrote the placards and all the written material and spoken material of her campaign?

In an academic setting, students put their mark on their work with the understanding that it is their work and only their work as a matter of honor. In politics, it is established precedent that politicians get other people to help them with their rhetoric all the time. There is simply no comparison, and as a professor with critical thinking skills as a job prerequisite, this should be a no brainer for you.

I appreciate your disclaimer that you are a Hillary supporter, and we are perhaps all a little myopic at this point in the campaign, but I think it is a projection to suggest that it is the Obama supporters in this case that are blinded by their candidate preference. And while we're talking about "overlooking bad judgment," should we compare the impact of Obama's lapse in judgment in not crediting his friend (even though he had credited him for it in the past), and Clinton's lethally poor judgment and possibly even her weak-willed capitulation in supporting the resolution to use force in Iraq?

[AuntSally]

This isn't an academic setting. The senator didn't borrow a phrase for a term paper; he gave a campaign speech in which the goal was to communicate an idea as clearly as possible.

The rules of academia exist for the purposes of academia. To simply say that such-and-such wouldn't be acceptable in academia, and therefore is not acceptable outside of academia, is absurd. My high school algebra teacher required me to show every step of every calculation; does that mean that's how I have to do it at home, tallying up my income tax?

The message it sends to your students is this: use good ideas wherever you can find them; communicate with the best words possible. There is no academic code being broken on the campaign trail; no laws being broken; no ethical slights of hand. I don't give a shit where he gets his good ideas; I'm more interested in whether he recognizes good ideas when he sees them.

[MelindaPost]

Thanks. It seemed to me that, even after his explanation, the underlying problem is, well underlying,ie, what ever was agreed between the 2 fellows, the people listening were deceived. I believe that is the essence of the problem.

[AuntSally]

I was listening.

I wasn't deceived.

Quite the contrary, the words the senator and his advisors chose clarified for me the nature of his vision, the spirit of his philosophy, the essence of his approach to challenges. This wasn't an essay contest, it was a speech -- a speech whose purpose was to portray ideas as clearly as possible.

[shinybear]

Right but this wasn't a test in Obama's case- it's call script writing in the real world.

You can even hire someone to write your words for you like your Clinton dies- apparently that's OK for your students to do on tests.

What do you teach by the way?

Double speak?

[ESerafina42]

You might also want to mention that Obama's background in academia (constitutional law professor, I believe) is frequently touted by his adorers, so he certainly can't be unaware of this.

[Ono4Hoopono]

This is so dishonest I can't believe you're trying to make this pig fly.

[frustratedinohio]

If it's okay for Obama to plagiarize, then why can't we all?

[aznurse]

if it's okay for Obama to plaiarize, then why can't we all?