Letters to the Editor
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Hillary Clinton apparently doesn't even write the books published under her name.
Check out George Packer's aricle in the January 28 issue of The New Yorker. In that article, he describes how Hillary Clinton's book "It Takes A Village" came into being. Apparently, Simon and Schuster paid Barbara Feinman $120,000 to ghostwrite the book, in collaboration with Hillary. Later, when that draft was deemed unacceptable, an editor from Simon and Schuster and a few of Clinton's aides (along with Hillary herself) worked together to come up with the book that was later published. Packer describles Hillary Clinton's efforts is this fashion: Clinon "filled yellow legal pads with incorribly wonky prose..." Packer also notes that Clinton chose to omit the names of any of the people who helped her with the book. As he says, It Takes A Village appeared in January, 1996, with an acknowledgments page that mentioned nobody. At least Barack Obama wrote the books published under his name, whereas Hillary Clinton apparently didn't. Nor did she credit any of the people who did.
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Confusion cleared up
Re: "I'm confused. Obama has been accused of stealing words from someone who freely admits he gave them to Obama."
David Axelrod who is Obama's campaign manger was also Deval Patrick's campaign manager. This is an example of Axelrod using the same speech with more than one client.
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I'm troubled that the "plagiarism" message might be a subtle attempt at equating Obama with MLK and marginalizing him racially, as was attempted through a similar equation to Jesse Jackson in South Carolina.
1. I think that MLK might be the kind of comparison that most people would happily accept.
2. But I agree: we might be seeing the beginning of one of those different-standards-for-different-folks deals--as in, Here's a great excuse for Chris and Bill and Sean to bring up whether African-Americans with their MLK dissertations and hippity-hop get by with this kind of petty theft (and Hey! That reminds all of you [white] voters that Obama is sort of black, doesn't it?)
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@When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less
Hey Maureen!
That happens to be one of my favorite quotes of all time. I also find your stream of conciousness posting style, strewn with an excess of literay bon mots in the fashion of a Tata Truck (http://assets.panda.org/img/tata_33977.jpg) tooling through the Hindu Kush to be without equal, if perhaps too rich for the descendants of the Puritans. I always welcome outside viewpoints, keep it up.
But when I think about Humpty Dumpty, the Red Queen and politics, I think more about "it depends on what the meaning of is, is". We've already been down the Rabbit hole once. Are we ready to go back through the Looking Glass?
The past few weeks haven't been exactly reassuring IMHO.
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Lame and dishonest....
Look, if Hillary Clinton wants to win that badly, She should step forward and apoligize for her rotten votes once and for all. This is really lameo stuff, insulting to the needs of a country in crisis. For the first time, I really am put off by the Clinton campaign.
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Frankly, if I hear Obama use the words, "I have a dream..."
...one more time and not get called out on it, I think I'll scream.
He sure likes it both ways. Hillary can't utter MLK's name without being accused of playing the race card, but Obama can usurp MLK's very famous words and make use of them for political advantage and it's A-OK.
Obama is a big fat whiner. And so is his bitter, America-loathing wife.
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Yes we can .... call it plagiarism.
Here is a simple scenario:
A speech teacher teaching Introduction to Public Speaking assigns pupils in two different classes to present a speech in which they put forth their own ideas. Patrick is in her first period class and Barry is in her second period class. They are friends. As it happens, these friends have common interests and opinions and choose the same subject for their speeches: The power of words.
No problem there. You cannot plagiarize subject matter. In discussing their speeches both students think it would be cool to include the phrase "we find these words to be self-evident."
No real problem there. Each might cite the source of the words but the words are so common and the source for these words are so well known that they need not actually mention where the words came from. It is a speech after all and not a research paper.
However, while "riffing" off each other Patrick comes up with some words he really likes. Barry says he likes those words too. Can he use them. Patrick says sure.
No problem there. Patrick has given Barry his permission. They are friends after all and there is no copyright infringement, a legal term which refers to appropriating or copying someone else's work without express permission. It is agreed. They are simply sharing.
Speech day comes. Patrick gives his speech first. Upon delivery of his speech, his speech is orally published. It's his. Anyone who subsequently gives the speech without his permission has violated the rules-- or in the larger world, the law.
The teacher is liked Patrick's speech. Not only does Patrick have a compelling personality which he is able to project, but all the stuff she has taught him -- how to organize a speech using a hook at the beginning and a summary at the end, how to stay on point, how to project his voice, how to vary his gaze, how to mainly look at the middle distance of an audience to appear that you are including more people, how to use cadence and repetition for effect -- Patrick gets it all. Good job! He gets an A. After all, given a certain personality type, good public speakers are built not born.
No problem there.
Now on the the second period class where Barry also delivers a terrific speech. He too has master all the ingredients. How to organize a speech using a hook at the beginning and a summary at the end, how to stay on point, how to project his voice, how to vary his gaze, how to mainly look at the middle distance of an audience to appear that you are including more people, how to use cadence and repetition for effect. He's got it down. There is just one problem. The important and powerful words of his speech are ones that the teacher has already heard from Patrick. They are essentially the same words as a Patrick used at the most powerful part of this own speech, the theme of which was also the power of words. Ah yes. Words are indeed powerful. Unfortunately, Barry did not credit his friend Patrick. He presented the words as his own.
BIG PROBLEM! Barry gets an F because he plagiarized by passing Patrick's words off has his own without attribution. The teacher now has to confront Patrick who is also guilty of academic dishonesty if he knowingly allowed Barry to pass off his words as his own. These boys have broken no law, but they are both complicit in participating in that ethical lapse called plagiarism.
But who was hurt you may ask? The answer is that all the other students who did their own work are harmed by comparison.
But, you may be saying, what if Patrick was acting as a sort of speech writer for Barry? The answer is that then Patrick would have to give his words wholly over to Barry and would not be allowed to give the speech as his own. Instead, the speech would be Barry's. Patrick could never give the speech. The speech would just be Barry's.
Here is a wikipedia link that will help you to understand why what Obama did is technically plagiarism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
Obama is already listed there along with his intial response to the charges. He said, "I really don't think this is too big of a deal."
Senator Biden when facing accusations of having plagiarized parts of his speeches from Neil Kinnock and Robert F. Kennedy said something similar. He said the accusations were "much ado about nothing."
It is not plagiarism to use the term "much ado about nothing" because most intellient people know easily where the phrase comes from and can readily identify it as not being Biden's original words.
Are these plagiarisms somehow gray plagiarisms. No. They are just plagiarisms. The intended audience can decide how to judge them. In a political campaign we the people are the intended audience.
I am not comforted by a former law professor, who should understand perfectly well what an ethical lapse is, saying things that indicate that he sees his lapse being not "too big an deal." I would be comforted if he seemed much more contrite.
Henceforth, every speech he gives, every word he writes, and every word he has ever written will be scruntized to see if his words are his own. This is a big deal.
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To those who would post to disagree with me: I will not answer you if your answer indicates that you have read my post only as an attack on Obama and are not responding to the issue of plagiarism itself, or if you seem not to yet understand what plagiarism is, or if you post as Anonymous. In addition, I will not answer those who spew Hillary-hater-type attacks. I will not answer those who attack me and not the substance of my post.