I heard Skorski actually hacked into FAIR’s website and inserted that passage to make it look eerily similar to a passage in Franken’s book.

Which all sarcasm aside would make any criticism of Skorski’s credibilty irrelevant.

Why didn’t you put the example in your post, Rob?  Didn’t want to put on your frontpage how undeserving of thought Skorski’s trumped-up charges are?

I guess I’ll never be able to use the phrase "a Harlem Globetrotters game" as a metaphor for the current state of political discourse for fear of being charged with plagiarism…

WND certainly isn’t as bad a source as, say, the NY Times.  :^)

That said, I’d say that the Hannity & Colmes/Crossfire/Harlem Globetrotters thing probably was lifted from FAIR.  It’s not word for word, to be sure, but the likelihood of choosing the same show and the same cultural phenomenon for comparison is low, and Franken’s politics are a good fit with FAIR’s.

It’s interesting and highly ironic, by the way, that Franken’s rhetoric is far more balanced & measured than that of "Fairness & Accuracy In Media," and moreover a little bit less obnoxious than the 24 point font of Don’s link. 

Brian Maloney: "It’s Al’s name there on the cover, isn’t he on the hook for what’s inside?"

Rob: "Regardless, he is on the cover so he is on the hook."

 

A lot of the tools of debate and argument are repeated.  I didn’t make up the idea of an Ad Hominem attack, but I shouldn’t have to drop a footnote to some old Greek guy every time I respond to or make one.   When you write about something being a "red herring," I’m not going to make you drop a footnote.  I know the idea of something being a "red herring" wasn’t your original idea, but I’m not going to impose some impossible burden of citing your authority every time you use the expression. 

Talk of Crossfire/Globetrotters mergers don’t come as a big surprise.  Next you’ll go after (or give authorship credit to[?]) "def rimjob" here http://www.haloscan.com/comments.php?user=atrios&comment=106751874645858837 or "infinitussollux" at http://forum.deviantart.com/community/politics/599813/ or John Stewart quoted here http://kydem.blogspot.com/2005/04/sunday-roundup.html or Michael Kinsley (of Crossfire fame), in 1996, here http://www.milligan.edu/Communications/Library/Articles1/atlan3.htm.  I tend to think that none of them should have to drop a footnote to all the others when they repeat the same expectable simile. 

And the Ben Domenech thing is just a blatant case of ripping off someone else’s stuff.  If you’ve done a side by side comparison, you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, you should.  http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/24/13724/1544

Apples and oranges. 

If you — or Sikorski — catch Franken plagiarizing something, I agree he should be called on the carpet [See, The Bible -- Acts 11:1-18].  You might hate Franken, Rob, and that’s fine.  But don’t pretend that some political hack crying wolf [See, Aesop's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" (circa. 620 BC - 560 BC)] has legitimized your hatred. 

 

 

 

want to hear a funny example of "plagiarism"?

yesterday i was browsing the blogosphere and came upon a right winger who claimed the left wing moonbats were aflutter at the recent seymour hersh article in the new yorker.

(exchange posted here: How To Make Moonbats Even Crazier)

i claimed that the rhetoric directed at iran is related more to the iranian oil bourse and destabilization of the dollar than to a perceived nuclear threat from iran. the blogger called me insane and dismissed me as another moonbat. i went back and told him he was witnessing the origin of "moonbatman"… thinking i’d coined the clever phrase myself. today, after googling the term "moonbatman" i see there are 168 results for the term. so much for original ideas. the googling of the term moonbatman is, quite ironically, what brought me to this discussion of plagiarism. see… we all plagiarize. even when we think we have "original ideas."

for what it’s worth, i love al franken… the fact that he got the grateful dead on saturday night live and did the parody "jerry’s kids telethon" with jerry garcia when he was a script writer for the show won my loyalty years ago and i’ve hooted and howled at his humor over the years. and while he’s far more of an "establishment democrat" than i am, much less of a green / libertarian than i tend to be, i find him funny as hell and, of course, he does an excellent job of pointing out that the compassionate conservatives are neither compassionate (katrina) nor fiscally conservative (largest deficit in history)… 

Why didn’t you put the example in your post, Rob?  Didn’t want to put on your frontpage how undeserving of thought Skorski’s trumped-up charges are?

I linked to them.  Mr. Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog had so much information about the story that I thought I’d just link him and let you guys read it there.  Why would you assume I’m hiding something?  Its not like I deleted my entire far-left blog right before I announced my candidacy for the state legislature.

Talk about the pot trying to call the kettle black.

And, honestly, why bother labeling Franken a plagiarist when we already have ample proof that he’s a lazy, disingenuous, terrorism-excusing partisan hack?

Because it’s fun.  Duh.