Showing posts with label plagiarism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plagiarism. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2008

The "P' word.



Today as I was driving home from meeting a client, I found myself listening (as I always do) to conservative talk radio. In this particular case it was Michael Medved (you remember him don't you, the guy who said slavery wasn't that bad), and he was killing the "O" man for plagiarizing parts of a speech by Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick. My first thought was; thank god Mrs. Field wasn 't in the car, because I don't think I could take it. My second thought was; I hope the Obamaholics are ready for this because there will be plenty more to come.


Now at first glance the plagiarism thing isn't good, but then you hear all the facts associated with it, and you realize it isn't all the Hillary folks and the "O" man haters make it out to be. It seems Deval Patrick was well aware that the "O" man might lift this line and the "O" man lifted it with Patrick's blessing. So what's the problem, why are folks all in a tizzy over a paragraph lifted by a friend from another friend's speech? It's called desperation, and I suspect that this is the tip of the ice berg.


All those speeches, all those cities, and all that public scrutiny; the guy is allowed to slip up every now and then. Hell I lift other people's shit every time I speak in front of a jury, and I will be damned if I give them the proper credit. When I say shit to a jury like: "Inconsistency is the mother of a lie" I don't say that I read it in a trial advocacy book somewhere, but I did. My friend Tony is one of the top prosecutors in East Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Parish, and he uses shit I told him in law school when he is making closing arguments. How do I know? He told me so. And I guarantee you that he doesn't give me any credit when he is doing it. The point is, people say shit, especially in the course of doing a job or in the midst of a break neck campaign for the highest office in the land, and they don't always dot all their i's and cross all their t's.



Honestly, all the fainting at the "O" man's campaign stops bother me more than the accusations of plagiarism. Something about that shit is unsettling, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Medved talked about that too, but not nearly as much as he talked about the plagiarism accusations.

I think what bothers me about the "O" man is that he is naively trying to reach out to these people. He thinks he can bring the country together by bringing them in his tent. Sorry "O" man, it ain't gonna happen. And the sooner you realize that the better. Maybe if the "O" man was a cynical asshole who despises his political enemies like yours truly, it wouldn't bother me so much. But he is so trusting, so good, somehow; it just doesn't seem fair.


So "O" man, word to the wise: you have speech writers, use them. Don't lift shit from your boy anymore, no matter how tempted you are.