Stephen Denning
http://www.opednews.com
Febuary 19, 2008
Last week, when Hillary Clinton began contrasting her “solutions” to Barack Obama’s “word’s, Obama came back with a crushing rebuttal. “’I have a dream.’ Just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ Just words? ‘All men are created equal.’ Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words?”
The problem with the charge is that plagiarism is not just using someone else’s words. If that’s what plagiarism was, we would all be plagiarists, all the time.
Plagiarism has three elements. First, the words are stolen, without permission, from the original user. Second, the words are used without acknowledgement. And third: the user has an intent to deceive, to pass the words of another as his (or her) own, so as to appear more eloquent.
In Obama’s case, the words were not stolen: they were given. Obama had explicit permission from Patrick to use them, a fact immediately confirmed by Patrick yesterday. As in theft of property, permission from the owner is a complete defense. End of argument.
And there is no indication that Obama had any intent to deceive. On another occasion, he had acknowledged the source of the rhetorical riff. On this case, he says he forgot to do so. There is no pattern of action pointing to deception.
In any event, beware of alleging faults in others. Critics were quick to point out that Clinton is herself a liberal “borrower” of words, having borrowed Obama’s “fired up” line, as well as Edwards’ comparison of immigration enforcement to tracking movies from Blockbuster. Clinton has yet to suggest that she had permission for these borrowings. ... ( more )
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