Hmmmm... we've had a lot of attention paid to charges of plagiarism during presidential campaigns. Let's see.
White House aides fired. Presidential candidacies abandoned. Tough charges of plagiarism by Hillary about Obama.
This plagiarism business is clearly serious stuff, unless a Republican is involved. In that case, it can be safely ignored. More below.
Let's see. We've watched as a White House flunky was forced out for plagiarism in the last few weeks. (White House Aide resigns)
We've seen Delaware Senator Joseph Biden drop out of his presidential race in 1988 after accusations that he plagiarized a speech from leftish British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. To add to his sins, Biden also had to suffer through revelations that he plagiarized as a law school student at Syracuse University. Biden accused of plagiarism
Recently, of course, Hillary pilloried Obama for allegedly plagiarizing from his own campaign co-chair, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Hillary accuses Obama of plagiarism
Given the history around plagiarism, you'd normally expect sharp-witted reporters to pounce on it the minute they heard it. Guaranteed front-page issue, face time on the evening news, free drinks at the press bar.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, to sit and watch a Republican presidential candidate brazenly steal the words and ideas of a former Democratic president while the ill-informed press paid no attention, because its members probably didn't pick up the echoes or understand what they were listening to. I'm speaking of John McCain's closing paragraph as he laid claim to the Republican mantle at the end of the Texas primary, the day before he moved on to the White House for a ceremonial laying on of the hands by George W. Bush.
As he closed his Texas speech on March 4, McCain stated that he wanted a government as good as the American people. The second he said it, my mind's eye saw and my ear heard Jimmy Carter's oft-repeated line during the 1976 election about the need for a government as good and decent as its people. McCain's line is pretty close to outright theft and should have been called as such.
This is what McCain said at the end of his Texas speech (McCain Victory Speech):
"We will fight every minute of every day to make certain we have a government that is as capable, wise, brave, and decent as the great people we serve. That’s our responsibility and I won’t let you down."
How about that? Sound familiar? It should. This is what Jimmy Carter said every day, probably five to ten times a day, on the campaign trail in 1976 (Carter in 1976):
"We need a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people."
After he left office, Carter even issued his speeches in a book, A Government as Good as Its People. Carter didn't say he'd never let us down, but he promised something similar. He pledged he'd never lie to us.
There isn't, as racist Alabama governor George ("dime's worth of difference") Wallace used to say on the stump, a dime's worth of difference between a "government as decent as the great people we serve" (McCain) and a "government as decent...as are the American people" (Carter). Rhetorically, the promise that "I won't let you down" (McCain) is structurally identical to the promise that "I'll never lie to you" (Carter). The only difference is that Jimmy Carter developed these quite effective rhetorical ploys to appeal to voters who had been lied to for a decade or longer by their government more than 30 years before McCain offered them up as his own.
Did the media jump all over McCain for his theft of Jimmy Carter’s ideas, concepts and words? Are you kidding? Most outlets took it at face value and reported the speech as a straightforward set of ideas from the Straight Talk Express himself. Sky News (owned by Australian right-winger Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox) went so far as to hail "McCain’s Polished Victory Speech." (Sky News)
So far, The Straight Talk Express has gotten away with it. At the very time Fox News, the talking heads and chattering classes were taking Obama to task for accepting some ideas from his campaign co-chair Deval Patrick, McCain got a complete free ride on his blatant rip-off of the ideas of a Democratic president.