Did McCain Plagiarize His Speech on the Georgia Crisis? (Yes)

Source: CQ Politics

Wikipedia editor notices some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia. They appear similar enough that most people would consider parts of McCain's speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia.

First instance:

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)

vs.

one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

Second instance:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)

vs.

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)

Third instance:

In 2003, Shevardnadze (who won reelection in 2000) was deposed by the Rose Revolution, after Georgian opposition and international monitors asserted that the 2 November parliamentary elections were marred by fraud. The revolution was led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, former members and leaders of Shavarnadze's ruling party. Mikheil Saakashvili was elected as President of Georgia in 2004. Following the Rose Revolution, a series of reforms was launched to strengthen the country's military and economic capabilities. (Wikipedia)

vs.

Following fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place, led by the U.S.-educated lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili. The Rose Revolution changed things dramatically and, following his election, President Saakashvili embarked on a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms. (McCain)

Granted the third instance isn't as close as the first two, which seem quite obviously taken from Wikipedia.

It should be noted that Wikipedia material can be freely used but always requires attribution under its terms of use. Whether a presidential candidate should base policy speeches on material from Wikipedia is another question entirely.

Read more: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/politicalinsider/2008/08/did-mccain-plagarize-his-speec.html

from his notes! Like a 5th grader reading his essay in front of the class.

You can't lift lines without attribution, especially for original information such as the history of Georgia.

I am all for hammering him when he deserves it, but Wiki is not exactly a reputable source.

McCain is making policy based on information from what is considered by many as a disreputable sport. You can't say that those are just random words that happen to be in that configuration. What the McCain crew did was lift passages and change a few words around. The order of the information is unchanged. It's clearly a case of plagiarism. You should appreciate how severe of a crime plagiarism is. Especially in context. Stealing someones words and ideas is considered an intellectual crime. People get thrown out of school for it. People lose jobs over it. People lose elections over it. It's a big deal.

Tell me what other way was he supposed to say it? He gave the correct information, I am sure that that particular wording could be found from other sources. There is nothing here, sorry.

The difference between plagiarism and research

That's why I say that it happens all the time.

I imagine the ridicule would last at least a week, and be among the first questions asked of Obama in the Presidential debate.

as soon as news broke his aides were on wikipedia trying to figure out what Georgia actually was.

when in doubt, wikipedia!

He still doesn't know how to use a computer!!!

and i'm sure that all he knew of georgia was that it's in the south...

though in all honesty, i am none too familiar with that part of the world or the reasons they're warring.

and I've been reading furiously to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more confused I become. I wonder if we'll ever get a clear overview of the conflict.

July 15th -
Bush sent 1500 U.S. National Guard soldiers to the Republic of Georgia; they are still there.

July 17th -
Bush blocked Russia's U.N. attempt to negotiate a no-attack agreement between Georgia, Ossetia, and Abkhazia (why would they block it, hmm?)

August 8th - Republic of Georgia military (with U.S. troops still in the country), in an unprovoked attack, killed hundreds of civilians (including Russians) and U.N. peacekeepers in the capital of autonomous South Ossetia.

So then - do you really think that Bush/Cheney weren't instigating the whole thing? Of course, they did. However, Putin and the Russians are expert chess players, and Bush/Cheney are particularly stupid. Therefore, now you have the old cold-war hawks/neocons so vocally upset that they didn't get away with their malevolent intentions to undermine and exploit an already tense situation.

The current U.S. leaders care nothing about people's lives, only their pathetic egoistic designs on power, power that they have no moral authority to wield or the mental intelligence to use effectively. They are only about disaster and exploitation.

I thought this was ONE disaster that didn't have Bush's fingerprints on it.

Whatever disaster you can think of in the world, natural or man-made, can be traced back to President Bush.
Either he or a crony caused it, or made it worse, or didn't act properly.
Urban crime, Darfur, Georgia, Georgia's drought, The Bubonic Plague, all lead back to Bush somehow.

This is inexusable, given the resources and staff McCain has at his disposal.

not controlled by Russia.

It's about the money, people be damned.

and has no idea what he's talking about except what he gleans as he reads.

It is really embarrassing to watch. Often at the end of his speech, he hesitates for a second and then like third grader, he flashes a big smile and blinks a lot.

as questions were being asked after his speech.

...to stop the Russians

:rofl:

Can't be having rebels coming into an important swing state.

8643

They're marching to the sea!

Basing one's opinion on Wikipedia is frowned on for good reason. Ripping off Wikipedia for a speech illustrates why the Repubs can't be trusted to know the truth, much less speak it.

Why not? Couldn't be any worse than what we have now...

:kick:

:shrug:

:shrug:

What are these cookay recipes of which you speak?

:spray:

on McCain's website and in the Good Housekeeping (I think) "First-Lady bake-off" were plagiarized directly from Nestle's website.

I remember the cookie recipe.

Look at my screen name.

Yeah, that's the ticket...

....but he was one helluva womanizer!

The comments are both paraphrased (which does requires attribution) and - broadly - within the boundaries of "common knowledge" (not in the US, probably, but that's a failure of education not attribution). Common knowledge does not require attribution.

Besides, have you ever heard anyone stop and attribute information in a speech - or a lecture? I haven't.

If a transcript of this is posted on his website and it fails to attribute the sources, then you can claim poor attribution - but I don't believe it reaches the level of out-right plagiarism. I teach college history and research/writing for historians, so I do deal with these things all the time. Doesn't make me an expert, just someone with an informed opinion.

jmo

All the time - like this: "According to the Center for Drunken Republicans, 55% have been arrested at some point in their lives."

specifics - in your example, a statistic. That is appropriate and you're quite right about it.

I was referring (without explicating, which is my error) to McCain's use of general knowledge statements as opposed to specifics.

To say the following:

"After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises."

is not specific, study produced information, like your statistic. It is information that is readily available - not just in Wikipedia but in a variety of easily accessible places on-line, not even mentioning the variety of texts that include that generally understood bit of info. For example:

http://ggdavid.tripod.com/georgia/history.htm (paragraph beginning with "On October 25 (November 7), 1917"
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5253.htm (1st paragraph under "People and History")
http://www.aboutgeorgia.net/history/index.html?page=10 (entire page)

I'm not disagreeing with your point, just explaining in a bit more detail what I was thinking (but failed to say) in my earlier post. If McCain were using specific, study-produced information (and I didn't read the entire speech - perhaps he does in places) then yes, his words should be prefaced with the citation - as your example states. In general, however, it is not usual to cite every single source for information shared in a speech or lecture. Replace the quote above with this:

"In 1776, political leaders decided enough was enough and declared their independence from England. The result was a war that lasted seven years and eventually led to the formation of a new, independent nation."

If someone said that in a speech, would they need to indicate where they got it? It's general information to most of us and doesn't require citation at all. The history of Georgia may not be general information to many Americans, but it's not so esoteric or narrow a field that it automatically requires attribution, like your statistic.

Or, to put it another way - if a politician we approved of said the things McCain said, would we be complaining? Isn't this more about who said it than what was said?

:)

particularly as regards the "common knowledge" consideration; however the actual cited comments barely, if that, qualify as paraphrase and are borderline direct quote (I do see it as borderline). It's pretty dicey, but I would give my first-year students a pass on it in an oral presentation situation ( with an explanation of why it is dicey). With seniors getting ready for grad school, I would hammer them for citing a weak source. I teach college English and research/writing for English majors, so like you I deal with this all of the time. I don't know how you feel about it, but for my money Wikipedia is the biggest pain in the ass to teaching students what real research means.

More to the point, there is really something pathetic about a presidential campaign cribbing from Wikipedia. Even if McCain doesn't know anything, at least his staff writers and researchers should. Maybe someone should write an article: "From Ted Sorenson to Wikipedia."

:)

Gads, what a nightmare. I'm not opposed to using Wikipedia (or the other Wikis) as a first stop. The articles often offer solid links and source bibliographies that point novice researchers in the right direction. Unfortunately, they often stop there, rather than moving forward to those sources. For my general history students, I've tried to simplify the issue for myself by telling them that they cannot use Wikipedia as a source and may use only one Internet source for every six print sources (not including true e-texts and online journal articles that amount to the same thing). Research students may use Wikipedia as a starting point only - it's not much of a problem with them, as they are usually too excited about learning how to work with archives and primary source materials to care much about Wikipedia.

I agree that some of the quotes cited in the McCain speech are borderline, but I do think others fall into the safe category of paraphrase because of the common knowledge aspect. A matter of academic debate (and don't we live for that, anyway?) More importantly, you've identified the real problem with this situation - an utter failure by McCain's staff to exercise any kind of intellectual rigour. It is pathetic.

edited for clarity (such as it is . . .)

Not an automatic F, but I'd probably take at least 10% off. That would be for a term paper, of course.

For me, paraphrasing makes it worse, because it shows a deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that a source was used without attribution. It's true that something that is common knowledge does not have to be attributed, but what signals a plagiarism problem here is the extreme similarity of the language chosen. That's not OK, even in a speech. The fact that the writer not only cannot come up with their own facts, but also cannot even craft new language to describe the facts that they have just looked up on the Internet, reveals a level of intellectual incoherence, incompetence and incuriosity that should disqualify them from holding the office of the president.

The fact is that the kids who grew up using the internet, and intentionally or unintentionally plagiarizing it, are now writing McCain's speeches. If you have any doubt of this, assign your students a topic such as "What history means to me," and then google the phrase "What history means to me" when you're grading and look at the results on the first few pages. You will find at least a few students who use the Internet in a highly problematic way: I once had a student claim that it just so happened that his two page essay had exactly the same words, in exactly the same order, as an essay by a Harvard sociologist by random chance alone. Alternately, do an exact text search for the less poorly written sections of your students essays, which is how I became interested in and shocked by what students today think is acceptable academic practice.

smell test. Paraphrasing in that regard certainly ups the deliberate factor; let's face it, most of the time the student's who plagiarise just copy/paste using the html formatting from the website, complete with different font and margins *rolling eyes*. Those that make the effort to paraphrase fall into two camps - either they really are completely clueless about what constitutes plagiarism or they are trying to cover their tracks. Either way, the failure to cite is the issue, whether it is from ignorance or intent.

In order to determine the guilt of McCain's speech-writers, we'd need to see what they wrote, not just a transcription of what he said, though - right? I suspect you're quite right and his writers' did not cite the passages - but then we're back to intent. It is appalling what is considered acceptable today; how many times have you run across the "who cares;" "it's just not important;" and "you can't steal ideas" on DU? I've seen it too many times to count, from posters that I would have thought knew better.

Nodded my head at your story; if I get through a semester without seeing a paper lifted in toto from the Internet I consider myself lucky. My favourite story in that regard came from a friend. A student copy/pasted entire sections of a research paper; a transparent effort since the language and word use went from something just above "text speak" to graduate school in the space of a paragraph. Easy enough to find the Internet source - it was the student's denial that made this one memorable. When confronted, the student initially denied that she had done anything of the sort, even when confronted with the full text from the website. She received a failing grade for the paper and because of her poor performance in other aspects, flunked the course. She APPEALED her grade to the department chair (extra points for cojones, I'll grant). Pushed to the wall to explain the plagiarism, she switched to a different tactic. SHE didn't do it, see? SHE didn't have time to write the paper, so her mother did it for her - and her MOTHER plagiarised the text. So SHE shouldn't be penalised because her mother didn't understand that was wrong.

That one still cracks me up . . .

Wrote it for Wikipedia :rofl:

His speech was more monotone and wooden than usual, and this may explain why.

Advisor: "Mr. Pres.... er, Senator - a conflict has broken out in Georgia. Russian forces are rolling in and attacking from the air, sir!"

McCain: "Have they hit Atlanta yet?" :shrug:

like they did to that UVA student

we should keep in mind that he has no idea what Wikipedia is. ;)

I find it very disquieting that information on Wikipedia is considered authoritative in the matter of foreign relations in tenuous times.

What next? Jimbo Wales as SoS? Oh, The Register is gonna have a field day with this one.

What a blow to Schlafly: even the GOP prefers that librul-infested wikipedia to his conservative version.


http://xkcd.com/285/

:rofl:

and probably call her a f----'n c---. Again.

or the Internet.

We are in big trouble with this guy.

How old do you think he is?

:dunce:

...now there's a guy that's had a lot of hard luck in his life. He was born a stutterer and conquered it as a teenager; a few weeks after winning his first senatorial election his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash, and he's had major brain surgery. All that and he still has a great outlook on life and would have made an excellent President.

Oh well...back to the plagiarizer, John McCain.

I think a lot of his positive outlook has to do with his strong family bonds. I think his children will follow in his footsteps as far as public service goes.

I was actually surprised (and somewhat "relieved") to read about the stuttering. Although I've always liked his ideology, I thought that his smile was overly affected and a little bit phony. Little did I know that it was a byproduct of his effort to conquer his stuttering.

and they were very impressed. I've said his family looks like the Kennedy's minus the money and the scandals.

Biden's history really explains a lot about the man's public appearance and his motivations in government. I've seen video clips of him in the hospital with his boys after the accident and they were heart wrenching, as well as very touching.

I think he's a great choice, out of four great choices (Clinton, Richardson, and Clark are the others).

...Charles Manson would make a better VP than Cheney.

Biden frequently quoted politician Kinnock, but on one occasion he neglected to give him credit.

<After Biden withdrew from the race it was learned that he had correctly credited Kinnock on other occasions. He failed to do so, however, in the Iowa speech that was recorded and distributed to reporters (with a parallel video of Kinnock) by aides to Michael Dukakis, the eventual nominee. Dukakis fired John Sasso, his campaign manager and long-time Chief of Staff, but Biden's campaign could not recover.<20><21> A speech that Biden had given to California Democrats earlier in the year contained passages from a Bobby Kennedy speech, but it was reported that Biden pollster and strategist Patrick Caddell had slipped the lines into the speech without Biden's knowledge.>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden

Of course, it is highly unlikely that the media will call McCain on this. He'll get yet another free pass.

i would steal from wikipedia too...that website kicks ass!!!

And they usethe classic plagiarist's tricks, too: change one word in a sentence, move a couple clauses around, and it becomes my property...right? Right??

<pedant>
No, in that case what you've got is a paraphrase rather than a direct quotation, and it still needs attribution, and you still get a zero.
</pedant>

To be fair, the rules of attribution for speeches and talks are in practice a little looser than the ones for written work, because it's hard to make a speech flow when you're interrupting yourself all the time to read the footnotes. What's really pathetic about this thing is the fact that they're plagiarizing from Wikipedia. As we know, Wikipedia can be edited by any Yahoo on the internet, and if these guys were writing a research paper in a college classroom, the prof would probably advise them to verify the information somewhere else before using it. But I guess if you're writing speeches for McCain, using The Wiki is good enough!

The Plaid Adder

That was toooo easy.

Republicans are devoid of original ideas, and just plain ignorant.

memo to McCain: so can we.

Plagiarism is a term used for academic fraud, that is, passing off another's ideas or expression as one's own.
The basics of the problem is fraud. (to offer a term paper or thesis as one's own in furtherance of the
requirements of a degree, but which work is actually the work of another). If the work is a copyrighted
work of another then it could also be copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement is a legal term. The Wikipedia is a copyrighted work, there is no doubt.
Yet in the case of Wikipedia, all materials are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL),
so the use is probably not copyright infringement.

Anyway its just hard to imagine a politician being subject to such technicalities. Lets face it, ALL their ideas are
stolen. We WANT their ideas to be stolen from our brightest and best! STEAL STEAL PLEASE! For pity sakes they aren't
economists etc, they are politicians (an unsavory but, alas, necessary breed). For unlike academia, we don't need our
politicians to be original, we need them to ADOPT what is RIGHT!. Thus, the contents of the remarks achieve their
significance mainly because the CANDIDATE said/adopted them, and secondarily because of their quality (or lack thereof).

So I don't think 'Plagiarism' or 'Infringement' quite sticks. What does stick, and might stick solid, is that the
useful, cool, innovative, helpful, and even occasionally correct Wikipedia IS NOT and does not claim to be AN AUTHORITY.
Thus, the main problem here is that McCain's campaign has apparently adopted the Wikipedia as his authority on Foreign policy.

So there we are. OIL COMPANIES are repuklien authorities for WAR policy, the Wikipedia is the repuklien authority for
Foreign policy, and one can now make an amusing game out of naming repuklien authoritative sources of policy for the economy,
environment, and so on.

whatever his apparently lazy staff hands him. There's no thought going on here, there's no leadership. He's a none too bright puppet, and the people pulling the strings aren't too bright, either.

agree. Your version is eloquent, mine is loquacious.

(lets not put the versions to a vote, I'd surely lose).

I just summed up what you put all the work into saying!

:toast:

You write:



The GFDL allows the text to be used without specific permission, provided that certain conditions are met. The conditions weren't met here. The use was not authorized by the GFDL.

McCain might be able to beat a charge of copyright infringement by pleading fair use -- short excerpts from a much longer work. We'll never know because Wikipedia certainly won't sue him.

Even if it's fair use, though, it's intellectually dishonest to take it without crediting the source (which is one of the GFDL requirements).

Even more serious is the point other DUers have made: This incident sheds light, very unflattering light, on McCain's claim to be the more knowledgeable and experienced contender.

Intellectual dishonesty = polititian . Sounds about right to me.

I agree that GFDL is a copyright license and that the user must comply with GFDL terms, and I also agree that
it is possible McCain's use did not fully comply with the GFDL terms. However, I further suggest that in addition to the defense
of "Fair Use" the Wikipedia copyright could have its own er... intrinsic copyright weaknesses (due to sources). It would be, in
any event, for the Wikipedia to claim and enforce any copyright, and I don't see them taking that approach in this kind of situation.

Additionally, I'm no authority but I recall the right of attribution is not one of the copyrights in the US. I think it is one of
the rights in europe, and I know the US is a Berne convention (a copyright treaty) signatory, but I think the right is excepted in US.
Therefore, with respect to enforcement of the GFDL (and other "Open Source" licenses) in the US at least, the GFDL may itself have a technical
weakness regarding attribution requirements. I have heard of arguments which challenge such things for US as incompatible with US
copyright law. Possibly the Free Software Foundation, the principle architect of the GPL and GFDL will have a view that differs.

But my main point would be that all this quickly becomes an argumentative quagmire without a clear winner. They even may start to
look intelligent by arguing with you, as you end up sputtering at their ludicrous circular arguments (which do not hold up in
a court, but are great for political purposes). Remember, to repukliens 'torture' is not torture (at least not the way they do it).

Yet I make no serious objection if someone wants to use this to distract the McCain camp. Its just that I wonder if it
isn't more fun and productive on this item to just loudly snicker at the McCain campaign for being STOOOOOOOPID.

Alas, I doubt it will phase them. Ever since McCain's "tire gauge" fiasco they seem to have lost all sense of shame.

Talk about timely,

Jacobsen v. Katzer
(United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,
case no. 06-CV-1905, decided August 13, 2008.

Enforcing an attribution requirement in an Open Source license as a condition of use


In footnote 5 the court distinguishes the case from "mere 'author attribution' cases" by saying:



So there we are, lower court reversed.
Yea for open source. (not endorsing the opinion as correct, just rooting for my 'team')

Even though McBloodNGuts was obviously dutifully briefed by his Repiglicon staffers and was given a plagiarised speech, he STILL managed to mangle Mikheil Saakashvili's name...TWICE. This is probably why they edited "Shevardnadze" out of the third plagiarised quote. The fur certainly would have flown if he had mispronounced THAT name...

He OBVIOUSLY knows NOTHING about the region and/or the conflict, yet the talking asses on CNN are spouting talking points like "knows all the players," and "foreign policy experience."

I HATE the L$M.

:shrug:

I'd like to be able to tell my classes that and I'd like to tell them where I got this info.

Thanks.



Cher

Also the website is wikipedia-watch, so you know that its conclusions have to be accurate.



;)

It's certainly an issue. People see something on a web page that they didn't have to pay for so it's "free" content, right? and that means they can just cut-and-paste it into a Wikipedia article, right? Well, of course, NOT right, but little babies aren't born understanding that. There's an endless supply of newbies who stick copyright violations in Wikipedia. Most are removed but, inevitably, some get through.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't cite Daniel Brandt as a reliable source for anything related to Wikipedia. He simply despises the project. He engaged in off-Wiki harassment of several volunteer editors in pursuit of the goal he finally achieved, which was to have his own Wikipedia biography deleted so that it would be harder for the public to find out about him. He's unbalanced in at least one sense of the word.

"after watching Obama's speech today and comparing it to McCain's, it's obvious that John McCain has soooooo much more knowledge on foreign relations and has alllllll that history still in his brain." Seriously. Can't remember which idiot it was, but it was pretty hilarious knowing this about McCain plagiarizing the Wiki !
:rofl:

Don't expect the Barbecue Crew to make much of it.

candidate, and this is what happens, apparently.

Which of course, will all be brushed off my those in the media. Can you just imagine if Obama had done something so stupid?

This is the man who needs someone whispering in his ear so he can sound as if he knows the difference between Sunni and Shia, and Al Qaeda and Iran. Or where Pakistan is, vs. Iraq. Who can't be trusted to know that Czechoslovakia hasn't existed in 15 some years. But foreign policy is his expertise, right?

AND NO ONE SEEMS TO QUESTION ALL THIS IN THE MSM. Does this make anyone else absolutely nuts?

I'm not so worried about the "plagarism" part of this. But I am about the incompetence. Beyond what I said above, anyone who is too lazy to move beyond Wikipedia as a source is too lazy to be president.

I yelled out loud when Keith said it in his intro! :bounce:

:rofl:

Sorry, been a long day and that was just what I needed :evilgrin:

he he he he he he he

proud to be rec 50

he he he he he he he

most of his staff probably got through college plagerizing, I wouldn't doubt it.

I mean, how can you top this stuff?

out of work. Too hard to spoof the guy.

and left stranded in some foreign airport.

Sid

Like this is going to make any dif. Obama is going to crush him like a bug.

Every Wikipedia article has an associated "Talk" page for discussions relating to the article. The news of McCain's use of their efforts has been posted on the talk page for the Georgia article.

There are fewer reactions than I'd expected. One person wrote, "Well, at least we're being useful to lay readers, rather than specialists...." and linked that phrase to a directive in Wikipedia's policies. (As an irrelevant aside, Wikipedia's math articles are notorious for this problem. They're completely impenetrable unless your mathematical knowledge is already pretty advanced.)

Another Wikipedian had a thought that's been voiced by DUers in this thread: "I guess this is what happens when lazy college kids become campaign staffers."

Wikipedia charges no fees and carries no advertising. The project's expenses (for hardware and technical employees) are met through donations. I wonder if McCain will pony up a few bucks now that we've been so helpful to him.

McLoon definitely has his comfort zones.

Ptooey

a college student getting marooned off her Semester at Sea for less than this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3764069

A college student presents a term paper or thesis or dissertation as her own work or research, and is responsible for giving credit to whatever sources she used. If she fails to do so, she may be disciplined (given a failing mark, suspended or expelled, depending on the policies of the school). A political candidate or other public speaker has no such obligation; if he did, just about anyone who ever ran for office would be filling his speech with citations.

In any case, while the history of the Republic of Georgia may not be common knowledge, there are probably lots of works, including some in the public domain, that have the information Sen. McCain used in his speech.

McCain did was okay? The student lifted a couple fragments of sentences; McCain lifted whole passages. He may have been under no obligation to credit where he got the info, but he certainly had no right to lift whole sections as he did.

For a simple factoid like in the first instance, it may be hard to argue that there is such a thing as plagiarism at all. Suppose I say that Hawaii is the southernmost state in the Union, and Wikipedia happens to have said the same thing. Does that make me guilty?

I'd say the second case is probably within the definitional boundaries of plagiarism. But even this example is open to debate.

The third case is very iffy.
=========
I'm not trying to defend McCain, I'm only trying to point out that by the standards of plagiarism Bleachers7 is assuming, a lot of statements would fall under that category. I've certainly said some things that are no more original than what McCain said in the third instance. You can only re-word information so much without changing the fundamental meaning, and it's not custom to cite Wikipedia in a formal speech.

I would never defend John McCain, and I am not doing it now, but is this all we have? He named some historical facts in his (crappy-ass) speech, which happen to (gasp!) correspond (somewhat) to the historical facts on Wikipedia. SFW?? Perhaps the issue here is that he gave a horribly boring speech that was just a stream of political facts, which I would say is a viable criticism, but the fact that his statements coincide with a resource on the topic is not evidence of plagiarism - rather it is evidence that history is a constant. Come on, calling that first statement "plagiarism" is just a joke. It's like someone giving a speech in which they state that Montgomery is the capital of Alabama - and then we look it up on Wikipedia and - OMG - the same thing is there! It must be plagiarism!

Georgia was one of the first officially Christian nations (OMG did I just plagiarize?) - that is fact. Wikipedia states that fact. So did McCain. Does that make it plagiarism? Seriously.

I am all for hitting McCain with all we have, but this is just plain lame (IMO of course) and if anything weakens our case.

The others are simply what you would say in simply going through the history. That they've been Christian a long time didn't have much to do with the history in the 1990s. (Weren't they where the Cossacks (as opposed to Kossacks) and Stalin came from.

did McCain make a statement that was coherent. If the answer is yes, he probably lifted it from someone else.

Because I first noticed the statement was weird because it wasn't the kind of language McCain uses. It seemed off.

There are loads and loads of issues to hammer McCain over. And THIS insipid shit gets voted to the front page? :eyes: The speech and the Wikipedia page aren't even remotely the same, other than a recitation of basic historical fact.

Sweet fucking Christ, I am ashamed of the DU today.

And I share your shame.

Focusing on this crap simply mirrors GOP tactics. And with this, and other issues recently, we are allowing them to frame the debate (in this case, because they have focused so much on "plagiarism" in the campaign thus far).

I hope we pull our heads out of our asses and genuinely change the tome and the focus in US politics, instead of playing along.

"Rich people don't have to pay taxes because that's how they have the time to figure out how to make your life harder and steal your jobs. That's just one reason why I'm an asshole."