Comments on Another Obama "Plagiarism" Video

Ah, the unseemly death-throes of a once-vaunted political machine...as someone who started supporting Bill all the way back in October 1991, it's both painful and fascinating to watch it all come to an end almost 17 years later.

Chelsea will be in the House within 5 years, and the Senate in 10. People like them never leave!

Our grandchildren will be taking sides for and against the Clintons.

I have an idea, why doesn't Obama grab the Boston mayor as his running partner? Same speeches in different places all over the country, while dear old almost dead John McCain gets wheeled into functions with ring wing crazies and continues to think the world would be better with more wars and torture.

Why hasn't anything been made of the fact that both Obama and Patrick plagiarized Thomas Jefferson, FDR, and MLK?

Oh, because the whole thing is stupid and desperate. If this is the best attack they can do (and it's the Repubs who are ultimately behind this), it's looking good for the O-man.

Yes, let's focus on the accounts that posted the videos, not what they contain.

Kebab @4 - I don't think these are particularly the most damning thing in the world, but the difference between stating "all men are created equal" and rearranging to order of sentences in another person's speech is that the first is a widely recognized allusion to a famous statement and will be seen by its viewers as such, while the second is a hidden borrowing of someone else's words. Speeches and speech writers get shifted around a lot, so there is often some overlap, and a few key moments and phrases are not the same as cribbing a whole speech, but the Obama camp's 'Patrick and I share things all the time!' reasoning is about as confincing as a junior high student's 'Bill and I worked on that together!' excuse when caught copying. It might be true, but it's still not original work and shouldn't be passed off as such.

'Rearranging to order' above should of course be 'rearranging the order.' If there are any other grammatical or typographical errors, it is simply because my partner's shoulder kept shifting when I was copying from behind it.

I guess people should stop with the "articulate" "slur."

kebabs @4:

Why hasn't anything been made of the fact that both Obama and Patrick plagiarized Thomas Jefferson, FDR, and MLK?

Good stuff.

elenchos @ 2:

Around my office we're always joking about who we'll be supporting when Chelsea is running against one of the Bush twins. It's funny because it's true...

VERY sad. Ask Nora Roberts and Cassie Edwards if plagiarism isn't a theft. When even the romance industry has more standards and ethics that a presidencial candidate, this nation is in trouble. Just great, now students will be able to defend charges of plagiarism by saying if a president can do it, why can't I? Isn't this a lovely example...

If Plagiarism is a theft, then Obama isn't change, he's just a thief.

It isn't plagiarism if Deval Patrick gave him permission.