Note: I'm the author of a new book, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, but I'm not part of the Obama Campaign.
The great "plagiarism" controversy pushed by Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, has led to coverage on the evening news, with the NBC Nightly News reporting about Obama and "his use of words were not his own." It even provoked a back-and-forth debate about how often Hillary Clinton has taken words and ideas from others. The story continues to be featured on cable news today and numerous blogs, most of them dismissing the accusation.
How did a complete non-story become a continuing feature of the Clinton attacks? Partly it’s because plagiarism is so often misunderstood. As a scholar who focuses on higher education and runs a website about intellectual freedom, here’s my analysis of what plagiarism means and how it’s misinterpreted.
First, here’s what the controversy is about, comparing Obama and Patrick’s words:
Obama: "Don’t tell me words don’t matter. ‘I have a dream’ — just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ — just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ — just words? Just speeches?"
Patrick: "‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ — just words? Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ — just words? ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words? ‘I have a dream’ — just words?"
This cannot be plagiarism for a very simple reason: Deval Patrick had urged Obama to use the language. As Obama reports, "he had suggested that we use these lines." If this is plagiarism, then every politician who uses a speechwriter (and that’s every politician) is guilty of plagiarism for using another person’s words without credit. When Deval Patrick recommended the "just words" idea to Obama, he was functioning as a speechwriter. Therefore, it cannot be plagiarism, even if Obama had recited an entire speech by Patrick.
However, even if Patrick had not given Obama permission to use his words and suggested that he do, Obama’s words still would not constitute plagiarism. Using quotes that someone else has used is not plagiarism. According to this plagiarism website (from TurnItIn.com), "Facts that are readily available from numerous sources and generally known to the public are considered ‘common knowledge.’" The American Historical Association Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct notes, "As knowledge is disseminated to a wide public, it loses some of its personal reference. What belongs to whom becomes less distinct."
The only mistake Obama made was saying that he should have credited Patrick. This is incorrect. There is absolutely no obligation for politicians to credit speechwriters or people who provide ideas for speeches. To do so would require littering speeches with a long series of footnotes that would make an Oscar thank-you speech seem concise and interesting by comparison. For example, Obama’s infamous "fired up/ready to go" statements (stolen, ironically enough, by Hillary Clinton and, in mocking form, John McCain) were taken from a woman at a small campaign event in Iowa last year, as Obama has mentioned in earlier speeches, but not later ones. Is Obama plagiarizing this woman whenever he says "fired up" and "ready to go"? No, absolutely not. No one expects presidential candidates to pile up citations for every speech they make. Nobody needs to hear the story about that crazy woman every time Obama wants to say "fired up."
Obama goes much further than other politicians in writing his own speeches and writing his own books. By contrast, Hillary Clinton falsely took sole credit ("I actually wrote the book") for her book "It Takes a Village" and failed to even acknowledge her ghostwriter.
Back in 1987, Michael Dukakis fired the staffers who smeared Joe Biden as a plagiarist for making a minor error. Hillary Clinton should fire Howard Wolfson for spreading this false charge, and apologize for inaccurately smearing Barack Obama as a plagiarist.
Crossposted at ObamaPolitics.