I don’t know – you know I’m not afraid to be alone on something – so if that’s where I am on this, so be it.

From my perspective, I don’t think you’ve made the case that politics speech-making rises above academic scholarship or even that of a column writer, in part b/c the politician is frequently sharing his/her vision through another person’s work. Heck, that’s the scenario with Patrick. As such, the multiple posts and frequent comments appear as flogging, fair or not.

Our disagreement is what it is, and with that, I’ll let this dog sleep.

About originality: our words are copywritten as soon as we put them down. Sure – there are formal processes for registering a copyright and so on – Pho is probably way more knowledgeable about that than I am. But it’s part of why plagiarism is relevant. Remember when people mirroring our blogs popped up and how disturbing that was? Or the use of Scott Bakalar’s or Jeff Coryell’s photos?

The issue was attribution – not the fact that such use goes on. Like political speechwriting, we know that it does.

One of the mysteries of writing what people want to read or hear has to do with how original it is – describing something in a way no one else has ever described it before. Think about books you’ve read that do that.

This is an incredibly difficult thing to do in many areas.

If we okay plagiarism, we are devaluing the hard work wordsmiths put into what they do.

That’s how I see it – here at WLST (the way Red says here at the stable), I’ve never been one to be sure I’m touting what anyone else touts – so if I’m alone on this, so be it. That’s not changing my mind.

I appreciate the back and forth.

You, Pho and, I will assume, others think that saying sorry makes something okay. Sure – we forgive people – but does that erase the episode from memory? That’s absurd. Come on. The Medill dean apologized, the fiction writer who fabricated a Holocaust story apologized and the White House aide apologize. So I should forget that the instances happened? No.

You are right – I did comment at other blogs about Obama’s circumstances but why that’s flogging, I don’t understand. These are blogs – look what you write about Hillary Clinton, or the Summit county party fellas. Are people coming over to you and saying you are flogging because you write about it more than once?

I really don’t get this sensitivity being shown because plagiarism is something that gets under my skin. It’s not a new bag for me. You read this blog enough to know that I write about it as it relates to the media and journalism frequently, as well as in the realm of politics or academics or government or fiction-writing – which happen to be the four most recent examples.

As for the origin and author of political speech, you know – you are spinning that – you know I know what you are getting at and I’ve said that that’s not the crux of this issue and everyone knows that.

The issue is attribution and not passing as your own what others say, speech writers not withstanding. That they are part of the system is undisputed – that what they write are their hopes and plans for the future would only be coincidence and I would hope for them convergence – if you’ve ever had to write about something you don’t believe in, you know how hard that is.

My issue isn’t about that and you know it.

It is obvious that the thread is about a Washington speechwriter that was caught plagiarizing, if a blogger did not point it out it would have gone unnoticed.

The Obama issue is related to a speech in which he addresses accusation about his pretty words, a good communicator being accused of being just that, its ironic that his speech was not is own, it may have not even been his idea, it may have been an idea of a speechwriter.

Hillary takes notes, she gives them to her staff that researches them, and then the speechwriter address them. At times, they may rely on how others have addressed similar issues in the past, and obviously sometimes, the speech contains the word used to address those issues.

People are only as brilliant as the people they surround themselves with, when you hear the speech or even the proposals do you really think they came from that person entirely.

You’ve stressed that political speech should be held to a higher standard without articulating what that means (unless I missed it) or what that does to speech writers, who are, whether we like it or not, a long-standing part of political speech-making.

Obama acknowledged his mistake and has not repeated it. What more does he need to do?

Editing in: Your comments seem to go on far more than mine, esp. with the flowery exegesis reference. Scott, if you have something you want to say, just say it. I can handle it. If I wanted to nail Obama, I would have done that. Clearly this post isn’t intended to be some stealth attack and I don’t go in for the tit-for-tat following of the campaigns – I’ve barely done that at all. Why do you seem to be so concerned about my position on this issue? I like attribution, from the beginning. So what? I think political speech should be held to a higher standard. So what? You don’t agree. Okay. What are you so upset about?

Editing in last thing: this post wasn’t about Obama – you’ve made it about him. Why? Again, what has you so rattled about this topic?

More to the point, Obama didn’t say the speech was OK. He said forthrightly that he should have attributed it. Then he rightly mocked the Hillary flaks for overclaiming it. He made a mistake. He didn’t reveal himself to be a big phony which is what Team Hillary claimed. And when you cite the incident, then go on with your exegesis about how plagiarizers misrepresent themselves (and BTW, I’m far more concerned with plagiarism as theft, but that’s just me) it seems like you are indeed once again flogging.

Obama made a mistake and admitted it. Overclaiming that mistake is no less wrong than trivializing it.

Thanks for the vote of confidence on not being fake. I think you described the situation well. I appreciate it (esp. because you saw what I did on Wide Open – I still haven’t figured out who you are but I am just sure I know you lol).