Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

A congressman wondered what contribution, if any, "SUB-GROUPS" made to western civilization.

If a cross gets lit, at this point, I don't think I'm going to be surprised.

 

Go ahead and laugh, but I took off Thursday because I don't want to be out in public.

 

Nobody cares about minor plagiarism.

Under normal circumstances, people would care that the campaign is blatantly lying about it, but that probably won't make the top 5 list of things Trump boldfacedly dissembles about this week.

Chants to lock up a political opponent, death threats to a woman who helped the parliamentary challenge, a parade of b-list celebrities instead of actual political thinkers, all of these are way worse than lifting a paragraph.

 

Sure. You can argue that it's a wasted opportunity, but her speech really wasn't that great.

This was the early criticism, before the plagiarism stuff came out:



She didn't make him all warm and fuzzy. It was bland.

And, the coverage of it sucked up all the oxygen.

Oh, and the convention can get a lot worse. Kind of expect it to.

 

I don't think so. You have to look at it from a "narrative" standpoint. It's all set up now for the "Comeback Kid" story the last couple days.

 

On the Obama/Patrick case, it's funny.

People now want to dismiss it. "He had permission." And, they don't expect us to go back and look at the original coverage.

Slate's excuse is laughable:

Without a doubt, Obama echoes Patrick note for note, and if he had included this passage as part of a student paper at, say, Harvard, the school would rightly condemn him for plagiarism, which the school defines as "passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them—an act of lying, cheating, and stealing."

On the conceptual level, nobody can accuse Obama of having stolen from Patrick the ideas or the information that "words matter," a proposition that is self-evident to every educated person this side of Hillary Clinton.

So, did Obama steal the words?

I think not. Most campaign speeches are composed by speechwriters who assume the candidate's persona. The candidate becomes the public "author" of these words when he speaks them, even if all he did was a light edit of the script. A speechwriter would never claim he was plagiarized by his candidate, nor would a volunteer. In fact, the volunteer would be elated.

Patrick and Obama, who rely on the same campaign wizard, David Axelrod, have shared enough campaign rhetoric to be declared separated at birth, as this Boston Globearticle from 10 months ago shows. Here's additional evidence of Patrick-Obama sharing from Jake Tapper's blog. As someone who has endorsed and advised Obama, Patrick occupies the position of a campaign volunteer or even a collaborator. Given the conventions of campaign oratory, I'd have a hard time diagnosing plagiarism on Obama's part—as opposed to poor form—unless Patrick alleged that his friend fleeced his words, which he hasn't and won't.

Why you shouldn't call Obama's speech plagiarism.

ABC News has both Obama and Patrick stating that he should have credited Patrick:

Patrick says an allegation such as plagiarism is too much. "It's not like he's writing a law review article or a book. He should have credited me two words," the governor said.

Patrick and Obama have longstanding ties and similarities. Like Obama, Patrick faced a tough race against a woman, is a fellow Harvard grad and the two are old friends. They even share political adviser David Axelrod.

"I've known Barack 15 years. We've talked a good deal. I fully expected he would sustain a charge at some point, trying to belittle his ability to motivate people. I got the same attack," Patrick said.

Obama has conceded that he should have credited Patrick. "I was on the stump. He [Deval] suggested we use these lines. I thought they were good lines. I'm sure I should have. Didn't this time."

Patrick: Obama Plagiarism Charge 'Not Fair'

It's clear cut plagiarism. By the candidate. By the Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

 

Could be. It only lowers the bar for the rest of his family members. As long as they don't plagiarize, they've cleared it. (Though, God knows, the odds are probably 50/50 that they do.)

 

We've got major convention speakers explicitly stating that only white people have contributed to to civilization and this plagiarism shit is the story.

 

I don't see anything wrong with believing in a right-leaning philosophy. Nor is it wrong to lean left. Both sides, at their basic level, have some merit. It's not hard to see why some good people gravitate one way and other fine people gravitate another.

But I don't see how anybody can want to be a associated with Republican Party, the party itself, at this point in time. It's for reasonable conservatives and moderates to start over with a new organization.

 

Not "only".

Just "more".

 

Dude. Permission cedes "ownership" of the words. It's not plagiarism. And there's no need for attribution. Period.

 

He said it both ways. He said he went through history and "where are these contributions" from non-whites?