Barack Obama accused of plagiarism
I don’t like to bring up the topic of politics, because that’s not what this blog is about (there are thousands of political blogs out there if you’re looking for your political news fix). However, I’m making an exception today because this particular issue is of concern to writers and other creative-types everywhere.
Democratic candidate Barack Obama was accused of plagiarism today, more specifically, lifting parts of a speech that was originally given by democratic Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Here’s an excerpt from a Yahoo! article I came across:
The Associated Press reported in January that Obama had borrowed ideas and speech points from Patrick, often without attribution. But with Obama now leading in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton’s campaign is using this example in an attempt to chip away at the premise of his candidacy.
First, there’s obviously a lot of petty political tricks going on here. This was known about back in January, when Obama was clearly behind Clinton. But now, with Obama in the lead, the Clinton Camp is throwing it into the ring to try and derail Obama’s momentum.
However, politics aside, let’s look at the more serious issue of plagiarism. Stealing someone else’s work, whether it’s the text of an essay or book, lyrics to a song, or even parts of a speech, is a big deal and has been known to ruin careers and credibility alike. However, according to the article, Obama and Patrick are no strangers to borrowing from each other’s speeches:
At a news conference, Obama acknowledged trading ideas with Patrick and said he and the Massachusetts governor occasionally had borrowed language from each other.
If a casual arrangement was made where Obama and Patrick agreed it’s okay to do this, which the above quote makes the case for such an arrangement, then it might be hard to pin Obama for doing anything unethical. The article continues:
Obama said he probably should have credited Patrick but said the oversight didn’t indicate a pattern of deception.
"I’ve written two books, wrote most of my speeches. So I think putting aside the question … in terms of whether my words were my own, I think that would be carrying it too far," Obama said.
I think that Obama’s biggest error was not crediting Patrick for that particular part of the speech, which even a brief acknowledgment would’ve done the trick. Since it appears that the two have done this before, it’s hard to accuse Obama of plagiarism with malicious intent. Furthermore, this might fall under the category of "fair use", although I’m not very knowledgeable on the specifics of fair use laws. If anyone can add anything, I’d be greatly appreciative.
Obviously, whenever using someone else’s words, citations are always needed. This holds especially true when doing any kind of academic writing or writing a book. When I was in college, most of my professors had the "guilty until proven innocent" philosophy when it came to issues of plagiarism. If a professor suspected you took part of your essay from someone else, it’s up to you (the student) to show it was your own work.
In conclusion, I’d chalk this up to a learning experience for Obama, and the rest of us. In the end I think this won’t derail his campaign, as it’s pretty obvious that the Clinton Camp is playing dirty by bringing this up the day before some big primary elections. Hopefully both candidates can move forward and put this behind them so we can get this country back on the right track.
More reading about this issue:
Obama says borrowed lines not a big deal
Similar Obama, Patrick speeches scrutinized (from CNN)
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