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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (305703)	5/18/2009 7:02:00 PM
From: Alan Smithee	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793917

Prof. Mark Liberman on MoDo's plagiarism. Let's try a little (thought) experiment in verbal short-term memory. First, find a friend. Then, find a reasonably complex sentence about 45 words long, expressing a cogent and interesting point about an important issue — say this one from a story in today's New York Times: "But the billions in new proposed American aid, officials acknowledge, could free other money for Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, at a time when Pakistani officials have expressed concern that their nuclear program is facing a budget crunch for the first time, worsened by the global economic downturn." Now call your friend up on the phone, and have a discussion about the topic of the article. In the course of this conversation, slip in a verbatim performance of the selected sentence. Then ask your friend to write an essay on the topic of the discussion. (OK, this is a thought experiment, right?) How likely is it that the selected sentence will find its way, word for word, into your friend's essay? Actually, there's a prior question, which is whether your friend will have stopped the conversation to ask why you're suddenly talking in such a writerly way. Anyhow, keeping all this in mind, read the follow three brief passages. First, one from Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo on 5/14/2009: More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Now, another from Maureen Dowd's 5/17/2009 NYT column: More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. (You'll note that the two sentences are exactly the same, except for the substitution of "the Bush crowd was" for "we were") Finally, an email from Dowd, 5/17/2009 (apparently sent both to nytpicker and the Huffington Post?): I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent — and I assumed spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. As a college professor, I've heard many excuses for plagiarism over the years, but I don't believe that I've ever heard one quite that lame. Full post here: languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

To: LindyBill who wrote (305703)	5/18/2009 7:17:07 PM
From: mph	6 Recommendations Respond to of 793917

I agree with you, Bill. That's why I think the GOP has to upend itself out of the "My friend" and gentlemanly camp and be prepared for bare-knuckled brawling. You simply CANNOT allow the Dems to define the terms or the issues. I've tried many cases, most in the defense position. I make it a point not to let the plaintiff define the controversy. You can't win if you play in the other guy's court. The best defense is a good offense. Whoever said that must not have been a Republican, but will hopefully instruct the party in the future!! Time to stop hand wringing and get tough! We need to shake up the nonsense constantly spouted as gospel by the Dems and libs.