Is Kamala Cribbing Her Personal Anecdotes from Playboy?

Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Melania Trump Walk into a Bar...

...the bar of high standards. What do these three have in common? Together, I believe they illustrate the difference between plagiarism and allusion. With Melania, the Jayson Blair of presidential candidate's wives, it was clearly plagiarism. Not that it was that big of a deal. No one expected the equivalent of the Gettysburg Address from her. Many people think the unforced error of the kerfluffle which came when the plagiarism came out, with the initial denials from the Trump camp, were largely due to Trump being too cheap to hire a decent speechwriter for her, and the attempt at cover up was just pure Trump.

But I read something by Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, and former opera singer:

I remember, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, Ronald Reagan gave a truly extraordinary speech. Every sentence was brilliant, but this part was unforgettable.

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

I was 22 at the time, and I literally cried when I heard those words. I was truly touched. Later, I learned those words had been written for Reagan by Peggy Noonan. After that, I learned Peggy Noonan had lifted those words from a poem called “High Flight,” written by an airman who died in WWII named John McGee.

Did Ronald Reagan plagiarize Peggy Noonan? Did Peggy Noonan plagiarize John McGee?

Now I'm a little bit older than Mr. Rowe, I predate the 24 hour news cycle. In fact, I not only predate 24 hour news, but I predate 24 hour TV!

Back in the olden days, when there were only three networks, and cable was what you used to suspend bridges, TV stations didn't broadcast 24/7. Typically they ended their "broadcast day" around one or two in the morning. And typically, the station just before signing off the air, would play the National Anthem and a short video of a jet fighter flying, while a narrator recited the poem "High Flight". Having on more than one occasion stayed up past the end of the broadcast day, and because there was literally "nothing else on", people would watch and listen to the stirring words of Airman John McGee. For those of Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan and my generation (heady company!), the words of High Flight were totally familiar and totally appropriate for Reagan to allude to. Whippersnappers like Mike Rowe may not have known where the words came from, but there was no attempt at plagiarism there, or anything like it.

But people often attribute a quote to the person they heard it from first. Many people attribute the line to Robert Kennedy that he quoted from George Bernard Shaw:

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

A more famous attribution of a literary allusion to the wrong source comes from the aforementioned Gettysburg Address. It concludes:

...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln was alluding to John Wycliffe's prologue to his Bible translation of 1384:

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

Lincoln knew the source of the quote, as, no doubt, did the majority of those who heard it. No one rose up to yell that Lincoln had cribbed part of his speech. But his allusion to it immortalized those words, and today, people who never heard of Wycliffe (that's okay. Today's government schools the kids don't hear about anybody!), have heard his words echo through the years.

So we have one plagiarist, small potatoes in comparison to the plagiarisms of Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden and even President Obama, and two well read presidents, able to make allusions to words well said by others. If we were to stack every literary or cultural allusion in the same boat as plagiarism, we need to get a bigger boat!*

You may quote me.



* Jaws (1975)


Art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Scumbags on the Internet?? Say it Ain't So!

I'm now on Tumblr. I didn't necessarily want to sign up, but it was the only way to communicate with the guy ripping off my Photoshops without attribution. I was tipped off to his thievery by our good friend Jan over at Diogenes' Middle Finger. (Give him the finger for me, Jan!)

I fired off the following missive:

Hi. I'm Proof, from Proof Positive. You're the one ripping off my images and Tweets without attribution. I am very lenient about people reposting my stuff, so long as they do it with attribution. Otherwise it's just a scummy vile thing to do. Did your mama raise you to be a thief? Please remove any images I have created where you have cravenly cropped off my blog address.

He ripped off one of my first drafts where I left Mary Jo's necklace on. Still, my blog policy is to let anyone republish my stuff, so long as they give attribution. A pretty low bar for most folks, but this guy can't seem to get over it.

You can see my stuff (and probably lots of other people's stuff) here: http://happyacres.tumblr.com/

I thought he'd ripped off my quote from Robert Downey Jr. on November 30th of this year. I like to Tweet my Quotes du jour, but this one was too long, so I edited a hunk out of the middle and Tweeted it. "Happy Acres" apparently took my edit and then edited it some more.

But seriously, how hard is it to give attribution for the stuff you post? In Happy Stealmore's case, it would have been easier for him to post my photo with the address on it than to crop it.

C'mon, now, Happy! Your Mama didn't raise you to be a scumbag, did she? Then stop acting like one.

Lunchbox Joe Biden Plagiarized Bobby Kennedy, Too (1988)

Bobby's words just flow off Biden's tongue, don't they? "The joy of their play", "The beauty of our poetry"...

Pay close attention at about 1:10 in the video, where he parrots: "the integrity of our public leaders".

Integrity, Joe? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(Haven't I always said that liberals are irony impaired?)

H/T Buzzfeed

Lee Vanden Sleaze Strikes Again?

Not that long ago, we noted that Lee Vanden Brink, hereafter known as Lee Vanden Sleaze, was stealing other people's work and slapping his name on them. He took a lot of it, if not most of it, down, and I thought that was the end of it - Internet plagiarist gets smacked down, lesson learned.

Not entirely. While it seems he is now loathe to erase the names of the creators and replace them with his own, it appears that he believes anything he finds without someone's name is his for the taking, without acknowledging from whence he may have gotten it or whose it is. (Be sure not to leave your car parked in front of this guy's house. He might "find" it on the street!)

Case in point: I saw this image over at Full Metal Patriot and left a comment at 3:26 PM CDT.

I remembered thinking to myself, the "mom jeans" quote was a nice touch.

Mirabile dictu! Lee Vanden Sleaze posts the same image, the same day at 5:39 PM, without attribution or a link back to where he "found" it. And while thankfully he is no longer plastering his name all over work he did not create, at the very least it is extremely rude and boorish behavior not to acknowledge the creator of the work, or at least where you found it.

Public shaming apparently isn't enough to keep Mr. Vanden Sleaze honest. Public caning, perhaps?

In case Mr. Vanden Sleaze wants to drop that page down the memory hole, you can see it here: ...or here.

You may note that I left a screen shot of my attempt to leave a comment, which his site will not accept, except from the echo chamber of his friends, who, presumably will not out him for his indiscretions. Such courage ought to be recognized. /sarc

Mr. Vander Sleaze: If I have erred in any way, please remember that I did try to contact you. Please feel free to write and correct me, if I am wrong, and I shall issue an apology and a correction, but I won't be holding my breath.



Update : It appears that the Mega Independent Post Dispatch was the originator of the P'shop. 'Netiquette requires that even if you don't know who created something, you certainly know where you found it. If you think something is worthy of re-posting, you should at least give a hat tip/link to the place you found it.