Letters to the Editor
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@ rampart
I have explained it again and again. I have posted a link from wikipedia on plagiarism, but Obama supporters did not want to read it. My conclusion is that you people do not want to know. You do not want to understand. You don't give a damn about plagiarism and how it relates to the choices that someone who has actually taught constitional law might make in his campaign.
I challenge you to click on the link to my archives under my name and go read all I have written about why what Obama did in his speech is plagiarism. Go read what I have written, as a former college English instructor who has taught students about plagiarism and critical thinking, and then come back and tell me where you disagree with my thinking -- it you aren't too damn cowardly to do so. Tell me why you disagree.
None of you seem to understand what plagiarism is. How in the hell did you get through college?
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@ Xrandadu Hutman
I don't have speakers which work on my computer, but it that link you keep posting over and over again is the same as the transcript that I have read on Hillary Clinton's closing words in the debate last night it is not word for word.
So are you just lying?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ7Cs3QvT3U&feature=bz301
One of them is the real thing.
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Hey AKA Smith, nice ad-hominem attack there -- and you're wrong
AKA Smith: "You don't understand what plagiarism is. How did any of you get through college?"
Okay, please explain why Obama's speech is plagiarism while Hillary Clinton's is not.
Your excuse that "it's not word-for-word" is bogus. What if it's closer to 75% word-for-word? What if the exact same idea is being expressed in the exact same manner and context? If it isn't plagiarism, then what is it? Borrowing?
And now you're defending something without actually watching the video link?
Note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ7Cs3QvT3U&feature=bz301
No computer speakers? Go get some iPod headphones and plug them into your computer then.
Besides, the point isn't that Hillary plagiarized. Hell, I don't care if she wants to borrow half her speech from something Bill Clinton said 15 years ago, if that's what she wants. The point is that she is being hypocritical by trying to turn three sentences out of thousands in Obama's speeches into a major attack issue, when it turns out she is far from squeaky clean in the same realm.
Are you so blind that you can't see how this would be hypocritical? Would you really allow your knee-jerk "defend Hillary at all costs!" impulse to override your base-level ability to reason? I mean, really?
How did YOU get through college?
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Hey, AKAsmith,
we know it's not word for word. But weren't you the one posting breathless letters a couple days ago about how plagiarism consisted of the lifting of "words OR ideas"?
Yes, you were.
Check. Mate.
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@ Hutman
(1) You defend Clinton's charge of hypocrisy against Obama as being fair game, and of fitting the definition of "plagiarism."
Word for word plagiarism means that there is no difference at all between the original text or statement. That the words are in the exact same order. No difference at all
This is close to what Obama did when he delivered in his speedh several statements which were almost word for word those of Deval's.
This is not what Clinton is doing. Furthermore, as I have explained over and over, when people are using common words or phrases, unless it is word for word, it is usually not plagiarism. Hillary Clinton's words from the debate last night do not constitute plagiarism. Using sentiments close to those of Edward's is not plagiarism. You cannot plagiarize sentiments.
You can plagiarize ideas if they are distinct or unusual but the ideas or Edward's or Clinton's are just not that distinct or original.
(2) You defend Clinton's ill treatment of her ghost writer on "It Takes a Village."
I have never done this but if someone is a truly a ghost writer that person is generally not acknowledged unless it is in their contract. Having a ghostwriter is not the same thing as plagiarism. Lots of people hire ghostwriters. Treating them nicely is usually not part of the contract.
(3) Then when challenged with Clinton's own copycat speech expressions, you ignore the worst of them, and try to pretend the only charge being made was that she used the word "fine"
Similarity is not the same thing as plagiarism. As lack of originality is not a shooting offense in writing or speech. If it were, you wouldn't be here, repeating the Obama talking points that his hive mind followers were given this morning.
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AKA Smith,
I didn't speak to the rightness or wrongness of the charges made against Mr. Obama in my post. I made it through college and I understand what plagarism is. I only wondered how Ms. Clinton can make the charge and, moments later, steal a few lines from a speech her husband made many years earlier. Are spouses exempt? I don't think they are, but you tell me.
That is why I find Ms. Clinton so unbearable and, by extension, people like you. You insult my education when I didn't even address the definition of plagarism. If you had the power of deduction, you could deduce that I implied they both are guilty--only Ms. Clinton's transgressions are worse because she is complaining about her opponent while engaing in the same thing.
How did you make it through college, AKA Smith?
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AKA Smith, your question
I meant that among the tough questions Obama should be grilled on, his position on compulsory national service. As part of a revival of a draft and WWII style army, that topic is bubbling around. The left loves it, to inculcate state sponsored "values" and ideas, cut labor government and other labor costs, create artificial favorable emplpyment statistics, and mobilize and regiment the population. Evan Bayhr, Froggy Mikulski, and others openly ssupport compulsory service, I think John McCain has murmured favorably about it too. It is a hallmark of modern socialist societies, especially revolutionary ones. And OBama is a marxist.
A candidate who follows Ronald Reagan's example in 1980 would win a lot of votes and expose weak spots in his enemies. Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley, and others were trying to bring back the draft after thetakeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran. Ronald Reagan announced at the 1980 convention that there would be no new draft if he was elected. We need a candidate to do that now. If Pied Pi[er Obama has national service in mind, he should have to tell the kids before the election, not after.