JUST WORDS


that aren't his.

Imagine, if you will, that someone discovered a key refrain from one of Hillary Clinton's big weekend speeches had been lifted wholesale from a speech delivered almost two years ago by a governor she knew, and with whom she had stood while the words were first being delivered. Do you think you might be hearing a little something about that on the news? Reading more than a little about it on the news sites? Think the pundits might have a little fun with that one?

Now imagine, if you will, that someone discovered a key refrain from one of Barack Obama's big weekend speeches had been lifted wholesale from a speech delivered almost two years ago by a governor he knew, and with whom he had stood while the words were first being delivered. Do you think -- especially given everyone's love affair with this guy's (vastly overrated) oratory and rhetoric -- that might be worth hearing a little something about on the news? Maybe reading about on the news sites?

The New York Times has a story -- twelfth one down on the politics page, nowhere to be found on the home page -- that soft-pedals the story, gives an awful lot of time to Obama camp rationalization, and practically telegraphs its indifference in the headline: An Obama Refrain Bears Echoes of a Governor's Speeches.

For the record: that's not echoing; that's copying. If a student in one of my OralComm classes had delivered a passage in a speech lifted straight out of the speech of one of his friends -- and no matter whether they (ahem) often riff off one another -- I'd have failed the kid for plagiarism. Straight up. And then I would have investigated to find out if the friend knew he was gonna do it. But, hey, what are ethical standards in politics, right? I mean, it's not like the guy is basing his entire campaign on being a rhetorically original, politically and ethically refreshing kinda guy, right?

The Washington Post: nothing on the home page, nothing on the politics page.

MSNBC: nothing on the home page, nothing on the politics page.

CNN: nothing on the home page, nothing on the politics page.

ABC News home page: nothing.

ABC News politics page: bingo. The top story -- as of 9:15 this morning:

Obama's Inspiring Words... Plagiarism?

The link goes to Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper's Political Punch blog, a site to which I have directed you before and will certainly be directing you again. It's nice to see that some major news organization and some major national journalist -- bravo, Mr. Tapper -- thinks this is a story worth mentioning. And maybe even worth more than a cursory, well-buried mention that will be sure to spare the Golden Boy of the Media even the slightest bit of tarnish.

Also for the record: Mr. Tapper's piece is the very definition of fair-and-balanced: offering views (and sources, and supporting links) from both sides and giving this revelation the open, reasoned, objective airing it deserves.

You can decide for yourself what this means or whether it bothers you at all. But you can't in good conscience suggest -- as so many of our allegedly unbiased media outlets seem to be -- that it's not worth covering at all.

Update 1:15pm: Making my point all the more? The Obama camp's response to this story -- in which they claim that Hillary Clinton has borrowed rhetoric too because she one said we are fired up and we are ready to go," a sentence that surely no one in the history of the world had ever used before Senator Breath of Fresh Air began saying it -- is the #2 Latest News headline on the CNN home page: Ticker: Obama camp: Clinton copied too.

It would be unbelievable, were it not so predictable.

Posted: Mon - February 18, 2008 at 09:15 AM          

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