"Is it OK to get help on a paper?

Help from another person on a paper does not necessarily become plagiarism. If the help consists of criticisms of the words and ideas of your paper, rather than substitutions for those words and ideas, it is acceptable. At the point that you insert someone else's ideas or words into your paper without acknowledging the source of those ideas, plagiarism begins. If you use someone else's ideas or words, say so in your paper.

"Is it OK for a friend, parent, or relative to write all or part of a paper for me?

Regardless of the motivation of the "helper," if you hand in work that has been done in part or whole by another without specifically indicating what help was given, you have committed plagiarism."

-from Phillips Academy handbook

Granted, it's not an Academy for Political Speechwriters, but it comes closest to what happened in the Patrick/Obama speech.

Continue your poo-flinging without me, boys. I'm going to bed.

Barack is not presenting the speech as written by himself. He has speechwriters. You have admitted this.

If your best argument is to quote a high school honor code, then congratulations, you're a genius. And by genius I mean moron.

You are a person who Will Not Get It, period. I don't think Jesus Christ himself could appear before you and convince you that you are wrong.

It's interesting that you bring up honor codes, however, in light of the false attacks Hillary has been slinging at Obama ever since the polls got her "feeling down." Wonder how they deal with lying at Phillips Academy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism

What is interesting about Obama's carelessness in not attributing his words to Deval Partick is that once one is caught doing something like this, others cannot resist scrutizing past work. I may even be plugging a few phrases from Obama's books into Google myself. It is just one of the methods which I used to use to catch student plagiarizers. I quite enjoyed it. I hate plagiarizers.

Some students were serial plagiarizers. If they did it once, chances are -- even if caught -- they often tended to try it again. Also, if you catch one at it and compare notes with other teachers, you will often find that a sort of Cabbage Patch plagiarism went on in the past. These students are always "innocent" and claimed that they just did not understand what plagiarism was -- no matter how many times you went over it in class.

I have also noticed that people who tend to defend such intellectual dishonesty are usually a bit short on ethics themselves.

Too bad. If more emerges and it turns out that Obama has made a habit of this sort of thing, I won't vote for him even in November. Intellectual dishonesty is usually just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface are other lies.

I would rather have a reasonably honest Republican president than an embarrassingly dishonest Democratic president. Such a president would only hurt the party in the long run.

mccain isn't reasonably honest, no matter by who or how obamas speeches got written

Since you are presenting yourself as a teacher, I hope you will do some research into political rhetoric and come to the realization that, first, candidates employ speechwriters (Jerry Seinfeld had his own show, but he didn't write all his own lines -- is he a plagiarist?) and second, the standards for political rhetoric are different (notice that today Howard Wolfson refused to guarantee that Hillary had never done anything similar), and third, Deval called Barack last week and TOLD him to use these very lines.

Intellectual dishonesty comes in many forms, AKA. We know you shill Hillary on these pages and it is your right to support your candidate. However, if you are able to separate your political prejudice from your brain, you will conclude that this is not an issue. If you are unable to separate these two things, then I guess we know that you have some problems with intellectual dishonesty of your own.

Here's a video of Hillary Clinton criticizing Barack Obama by asking, "Where's the beef?" Now, since you're quite the scholar, I'm sure that you can do some research and find that this line was the signature line of Walter Mondale against his primary challenger Gary Hart in the 1984 Democratic primary, and Mondale, in turn, ripped it off from a Wendy's fast food restaurant commercial.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/01/hillary_on_obama_wheres_the_beef.php

So.... Is Hillary a plagiarist?

Obama owned up to a few lines of ad libbed speech during an oratory he gave being loaned to him by a pal of his in politics. What's the next tempest in a teapot?

Both of those states mindfully, premeditatedly ignored the rules of the Democratic Party (you know, the one Hillary purports to represent), and decided to cram their primaries into the early glut known as Stupid Tuesday. Okay, it's not but it should be. That measures only who has most advertising money. At any rate, both states were explicitly told that their delegated would NOT be seated if they defied the party and went, lemming like, along with the rush to have an early primary. Those are the rules of the party. Now, Big Bill, acting more and more like the walking phallus the repulikans accused him of being, thinks Hillary should get the delegates. Horseshit, Bill, if that's not redundant. The candidates agreed not to campaign there. Many, if not most, voters blew it off as an exercise in futility, which it was because of the defiance of the two states' overeager beavers. If anyone should know the pitfalls of overeager beavers, it should be Big Bill and His Big One. For a Rhodes scholar, he sure is acting like a dumbass. love heywood

However, if you are the Anonymous who keeps calling everyone Sweetie or Honey, I shall not reply to you.

I am not saying Obama plagiarized. I am saying that he should have credited Patrick if he was going to use words that had been employed by another politician in his own time and these words are not common usage or so well known that no one would expect that he did not intend the reasonably educated listener to be able to make the attribution on his/her own.

The problem for Obama is not only that it taints him with truthiness but that it makes him look tawdry.

The sooner we face it the better: We have two very flawed potential nominees. Against McCain, they are both weak. We are just one serious terrorist threat away from losing the whole thing.

I did not say that I would not vote for Obama. I said I would not vote for Obama if more stuff like this begins to emerge. That sort of thing, combined with is lack of experience compared to McCain, would utterly sink him.

By the way, your use of "Where's the beef?" shows that you do not really understand plagiarism. I think you replied to me too quickly to have really read the link I provided.

By the way, do you think Obama borrows from Robert Hunter?

Also, I don't shill for Hillary Clinton. I reluctantly support her as the candidate whom I think is most likely to be able to beat McCain. Now, Edwards -- I would have really worked for him. He was the better option.