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Obama: Plagiarist

WildCat said:
It seems Obama took the first part of his "lipstick on a pig" line directly from a Tom Toles cartoon in the Washington Post. The Obama line on Sept. 9:


Almost verbatim from this cartoon from Sept. 5:
[qimg]http://home.mindspring.com/~dylanaverysucksballs/tom_toles2008_09_05.jpg[/qimg]

Try putting lipstick on that pig Barack! Is Joe Biden "writing" his speeches now?
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And you're citing this because you think it'll make any of us want to vote FOR McCain/Palin?
 
Didn't we already know he was a plaigarist from the "Just words..." lines that he stole from Deval Patrick?
 
Wangler said:
Ahh, right wing spam!

Tastes just as awful as the lefty stuff............

:spam4
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I have to,sadly,agree.
Let's face it, I have not seen a politician yet who has not swiped material from other people for his speeches.
I got a feeling this was done in retaliation for all the Anit-Palin Spam we have been getting over the past week.
 
pgwenthold said:
I'm wondering, in Palin's interview last night, she claimed her comment about being on a mission from God (paraphrased) at the church was actually quoting Lincoln. Did she ever attribute it to him before she got called out for it?
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I thought when I heard the "mission from God" line she was swiping from Jake and Elwood Blues....
 
Are you sure Toles didn't get the idea from someone else?

This is common knowledge stuff we're discussing. There is no copyright on a truism.
 
NotJesus said:
You mean 'used with Deval Patrick's knowledge and consent.' So the answer is no.
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I agree with the Democrat who said: "When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to 2 different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader, who has a set of assumptions and expectations that when you read words in a book they are the words of the author unless they are appropriately credited to another party.

So I think it's fine that Deval Patrick said that. But what I'm concerned about here is that the public has an expectation that Senator Obama's words are his own, unless he credits them to someone else. And so when you are running on your rhetoric and the power of your oratory and the words that you are using turnout to be someone else's, I think it undermines a very central and important premise of Senator Obama's candidacy."
 
pgwenthold said:
I'm wondering, in Palin's interview last night, she claimed her comment about being on a mission from God (paraphrased) at the church was actually quoting Lincoln. Did she ever attribute it to him before she got called out for it?
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Sorry for the short derail, but I was curious about that too. Cheerleading for war in the name of god's geopolitical preference is not a minor issue. Best I could find is this:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/09/12/did-palin-misquote-lincoln.htm


This about.com person could only identify the famous quote about praying to be on god's side rather than praying he's on ours -- not at all related to Palin's answer. Might be a fun topic for another thread.
 
novice skeptic said:
But what I'm concerned about here is that the public has an expectation that Senator Obama's words are his own, unless he credits them to someone else.
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Really? Does the the public also assume that Obama never employs speechwriters? That every single word he utters is the product of his own brain?

novice skeptic said:
And so when you are running on your rhetoric and the power of your oratory and the words that you are using turnout to be someone else's, I think it undermines a very central and important premise of Senator Obama's candidacy."
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But he's not running on his rhetoric and oratory. Rhetoric and oratory are tools. Is the central premise of Obama's campaign, "Vote for me because I have a way with words and can give a helluva speech?" Ludicrous.
 
novice skeptic said:
So I think it's fine that Deval Patrick said that. But what I'm concerned about here is that the public has an expectation that Senator Obama's words are his own, unless he credits them to someone else.
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Should candidates also footnote their speechwriters? How far do you want this to go? If a speechwriter plagiarizes a quote and the candidate delivers it, is the candidate guilty of plagiarism? Should all speeches be sent to turnitin.com?

There are only so many ideas under the sun. To expect every word out of a candidate's mouth to be 100% original is foolish. Is a candidate supposed to reject a good idea because someone else thought of it first? If Obama wants to use my ideas, I have no problem with that. If McCain wants to say that Obama is Stuck on Stupidtm...well, let's not go there. :D

Yes, when a candidate directly quotes someone else in a speech, that quote should be acknowledged. When a candidate is speaking without a teleprompter in a town hall format and uses a quote that he has previously attributed to its rightful author, and neglects to cite him, I think you have to cut him some slack.
 
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