In the 1984 movie version of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010, The Year We Make Contact, the director of the successor agency to NASA said, “Whenever a president is going to get us into serious trouble, they always quote Lincoln.”
Referencing Lincoln this past Thursday certainly has caused plenty of trouble for President Obama and his media enablers. In addition to PBS’s dalliances with the Memory Hole on behalf of the president, at the Tatler, Ronald Radosh asks, “Is Our President a Plagiarist? Here are the Facts: You Decide”:
“There are plenty of other points to make about President Obama’s speech on jobs, but one thing that leaped right out at me was how one section was lifted, without any credit, from Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum’s new book That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.”
AdvertisementHere is Mr. Obama:
“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.”
Here are Messrs. Friedman and Mandelbaum, on pages 37 to 38:
“Abraham Lincoln is best known, of course, for presiding over the federal government during the Civil War, but during that conflict his administration passed several landmark pieces of legislation that spurred America’s transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. One was the Homestead Act of 1862, which opened up the West for settlement by anyone who had not fought against the Union. Another was the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864, which connected the eastern to the western part of the country and so laid the basis for a truly national economy. A third was the Morrill Act of 1862, which established a system of land-grant colleges, giving rise to institutions of higher education from Georgia to Californian and from Minnesota to Texas. …Lincoln signed the National Academy of Sciences into being on March 3, 1863, to bring together America’s best researchers to ‘investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art’ whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government. Remarkably, all of this happened while we were fighting a civil war.”
Next time, the president’s speechwriters should be more careful or more honest. Or do they want their boss to be known as the plagiarist-in-chief?
I think Ron may be exaggerating things a bit with that last quip. But there’s no doubt that Obama has cribbed pretty heavily from Friedman’s playbook. The prominent Timesman has already been the source of Obama’s hackneyed “Sputnik Moment” reference in January, along with the line “nation building at home” in his post-OBL speech in June, making Thursday’s address to Congress at least the third presidential speech this year that Friedmanesque phrasing has found its way into. And the Times columnist has bragged about hitting the links with the president, when he’s not writing about the duffer in chief for Golf Digest. So I doubt he’s going to sue for plagiarism anytime soon. At least not until he can get the matter adjudicated by a court in Beijing.
Ed, you’ll appreciate this irony.
Friday, Obama gave a speech in Virginia. In the one short clip I caught, Obama quoted … wait for it … CHURCHILL.
It may not have been a word-for-word, but it was suspiciously close to Churchill’s famous comment that Americans always do the right thing once they’ve exhausted all other alternatives.
The prez of course didn’t acknowledge the source, and probably doesn’t even know his speechwriters poached the words he spoke from a man he so obviously despises.
He did preen with pride when the audience laughed at the statement. But what the audience was appreciating was Churchill’s wit, not Obama’s ability to read those words from the teleprompter.
I am in no way an Obama fan but it is a real stretch to refer to this a plagiarism. Yeah, there is the same idea that Lincoln did other stuff besides serve as commander-in-chief but that’s rather a obvious fact when one thinks about it. The only keywords repeated in both passages are “Lincoln”, “Civil War”, and “National Academy of Sciences”. There are no imitative phrases. Freidman doesn’t use the terms “leader”, “Union”, “future”, “Republican”, “transcontinental railroad”, or “land grant colleges.” I think you are completely off base with this accusation.
As much as I despise Obama and everyone associated with him, this is not plagiarism.
I don’t have any use for Lincoln, either. He ravaged the US Constitution and caused the death of 800,000 people. The British Empire ended slavery without bloodshed. We could have done the same.
I am a writer in real life (three books through a mainstream publisher, though it was a long time ago, along with various articles and blogs). I have had people plagiarize from ME. I know what plagiarism is, and this isn’t it.
One cannot copyright, and need not footnote, historical or other factual information that is already common knowledge.
Agreed. This is more than a reach – this is a false accusation.
Besides, even if it WERE plagiarism, it wouldn’t be Obama doing the plagiarizing. It would be his speech writers doing it.
He’s not well-educated enough to know where to look for good material.
Friedman has in fact written many intelligent books in his day, but he has just gotten weird of late with this China stuff, and now with this he is intellectually lazy…
Indeed Lincoln was a great man, but writing of this “litany of accomplishments” as though it has any bearing on today, or virtually any other era, is absurd. Why was Lincoln able to accomplish so much “even in the midst of civil war”? How about because he was in the midst of civil war! Gee d’ya think Obama, or any president, would be able to “accomplish much” if virtually his entire congressional oppostion left the city of Washington, intending never to return, but still left him enough of a Congress, now 90% allied to him, to create a quorum and start passing all those bills?
Not to knock Lincoln’s executive leadership, which was first rate, but that had little to do with the list that Friedman cites. Instead, that was all stuff that had been fought over for years, and never passed because of the unceasing and relentless rivalry between North and South. When that logjam shattered, and the South essentially dissappeared from Congress, a deluge of legislation followed. I hardly think that therin lies much of a lesson for our current or any other president, as it was a situation utterly unique in American history.
How brilliant a historian do I have to be to figure that much out?
Andrew, you are on the mark. Lincoln had, for purposes of what I believe in his day were called “improvements” a Congress that had lost most of the opposition to such measures, since such opposition tended to come from the South. Moreover, frontier-oriented measures like the Homestead Act and the continental railroad had, I believe, the intended effect of showing border South states what they might miss out on if they left the Union. That is, they could easily have been justified as war measures. Although, they could also indicate that as the first Republican president, Lincoln was a very good Whig.
And, no, this doesn’t rise to the level of simple plagiarism. At most, it suggests that Obama’s speechwriters read the cited work, and thought, gee, that sounds good, although without considering more carefully the context of Lincolns actions.
You could argue that the building of the Pacific Railway was done not only for military purposes but to compliment the Homestead Act (or vice versa) which rewarded all who do not fight against the union, as well as extend the influence of anti-slavery sympathies into the West. And the NAS was established to emulate the British Royal Society, putting the world, and Britain, on notice that the US has come of age. These could have been more political and militaristic than futuristic legislation.
If they really, really wanted to mimic Thomas Friedman’s thinking, Obama would have followed Jon Huntsman’s lead and given his speech Thursday night in Mandarin.
Well, that explains why I couldn’t make heads or tails out of his speech. It was in a foreign language!
Hey, whatdya gonna do? Ayers apparently isn’t available right now.
It’s not plagiarism. Friedman and Obama share their writing/researching assistants. It’s repurposing.
Barak to Michelle, ” Babe, Ya got tu stop spending my speech money on sneakers “.
I’m just surprised Obama isn’t quoting Carter. If Obama is relying on Friedman, then he really is lost. Well, better for the Republicans and whoever wins the nomination. And, considering the mess we’re in right now, I think Republicans should be quoting Reagan rather than Lincoln.
My old school, SAIS, where Mandelbaum teaches now, is hosting a lot of book signing on the Alum circuit. I think the it has all the dignity of a Tupperware Party, and wrote the dean and Eliot Cohen my very negative thoughts.
Worse the NYT shilled for it in the Sunday Book section, so now we have dishonest and cheesy associated with my old school.
Perhaps my memory is playing tricks but didn’t 0bama incorrectly label it the “intercontinental railroad”? Queue broken record: If a Republican President had said it….
Mr. President, We Cannot Afford an Intercontinental Ballistic Railroad Gap!
Our current president is no stranger to plagiarism and taking without giving credit. His 2 faculty mentors at Harvard, Ogletree and Tribe were exposed for plagiarizing, but were miraculously given a pass (where others would be fired) by Elena Kagan and Larry Summers. As Tribe’s “research assistant” and continually demonstrated by his present day behavior, this president obviously learned how to play fast and loose with the truth.
Sadly, the first words that come to mind when I hear the name Obama:
corrupt, cultural decline and poverty of spirit.
Linking Obama to Abraham Lincoln is nothing recent.
You’ll remember his train ride to D.C. that was supposed to retrace the route Lincoln took to D.C.
Are they trying to paint a vision of Obama as great as Lincoln?
My bet is yes. But, anyone who knows and has read about Lincoln knows how lame this comparison really is. It’s actually sickening.
Obama is virtually nothing compared to Lincoln, even with the accomplishment of President of the United States. Lincoln wrote profusely, for himself and many other legislators, because at the time, many legislators could not read and write.
If anything, Obama is the antithesis of Abe Lincoln; Obama can’t read or write with any hint of the nobility Lincoln manifested. And where’s there any comparison to the work ethic Lincoln embodied? That’s not minutely possible.
Please stop dissecting any of Obama’s speeches. Doing so only lends them some weak form of credibility. Whenever he speaks, crap comes out. He is the lying liar who lies. And–he has a lot of help doing it. And, by virtue of the fact that he enjoys it, listening to him for even a moment is more than he deserves.
I completely and utterly dismiss anything and everything he says.
Indeed.
I agree with ErisGuy. It’s not plagiarism. However, I think those on the left have finally achieved their desired Hive Mind. In some subbasement at the NYT, there’s a pulsing, gigantic Brain, which is broadcasting its meme of the day to all its minions. Like bees, but much less useful.
So, you’re saying we need the Ninja Turtles?
Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on a piece of scrap paper while traveling by train to the battlefield memorial: it is doubtful whether Obama can write a grocery list, without a speech writer.
Obama’s speeches have become an embarrassment with their predictability and his over used pattern of delivery. Whomever wrote his latest insipid plea for relevance, may have inquired into Lincoln’s accomplishments, thus the facts are the facts and available to everyone. Obama has an overwhelming desire to be compared to Lincoln; unfortunately, he seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur as well. The comparison may often be made in the future, but only as opposite ends of a spectrum of intellect, competence, ability, wit, and statesmanship.
Oh, and by the way, the Gettysburg Address was panned by all the elite NY papers at the time.
If BHO did plagiarize, I find it interesting he omitted mention of the Homestead Act. U.S.A.s’ version of colonization of ‘Indian Land’. It is hard to cite another Presidents accomplishments to one’s advantage and include something one despises. Another example of BHO’s (or most politicians) hypocrisy?
Friedman is a slickster, he keeps talking and writing in order not to be ignored, which is what he should be, ignored.
He strikes me as vapid and self-serving. He is among those liberal sorts who builds himself a mansion and then whines about man-made global warming. (The Goracle being the poster child for the breed.)
Friedman and Krugman hang on at the NYT, while others of their tribe, like Bob Herbert, were so bad they couldn’t even hang on at the Old Grey Lady.
It would appear that PBS also dallied with the content of Mr. Obama’s speech which is quoted in the article as:
“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.”
PBS omitted five (5) words, possibly on behalf of the president in that quote
Here what Mr. Obama said with the five omitted words bracketed:
“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union, [founder of the Republican Party}. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.”
I don’t think so. The President’s speeches are way more coherent. (I know, that’s not saying much.)
Hate to point this out but Texas did the land grant thing pre-1850. It was done by a sot named Miribeau Lamar.
Obama hasn’t had an original thought in his life.
That makes him pretty much like everyone else, except for two key differences.
He lies as naturally as he breathes, and the thoughts in his head were shoehorned in by a 40 year progression of dedicated leftists and communists.
Well, we gotta give the guy credit. He read the same speech this morning that he’s given the last three times and the market has only dropped 100 or so points rather than the 200 or 300 that usually follow his “millionaire, billionaire, corporate jet owner” blather. The doofus is making progress.
Whoa, there Tex;
To the stock market, Obama is like a 9/11 attack that’s lasting four years. And his destruction is affecting a lot of other countries.
Could it be that Obama is pulling off the greatest political rope a dope since Clinton shut down the government and got the Republicans blamed for it? Obama puts out a bill that is laden with fifty or sixty different proposals, most of which are anathema to Republicans, and tells them they have to “pass this bill” or they will be branded (by the media) as a do nothing obstructionist Congress. So, the witless Republicans go hunting through the bill for the three or four morsels that sound good to them, and then pass that knowing the Dems will never pass it in the Senate anyway, and the poorly disguised “stimulus” goes away and hammer Obama about the economy he is destroying and go on to a Republican landslide in 2012(especially slaughtering the obstructionist Democrat Senators). But, surprise, the Democrat Senate goes along with the bill and Obama signs it and, a) the economy gets better because of it and Obama takes credit because he proposed the parts of the bill that got passed and wins re-election, or b) the economy does not pick up and even gets worse because the new legislation is too little too late and Obama blames the Republicans for passing legislation that does not help the economy and claims that if they had passed all of his proposals the economy would be better thereby winning re-election. So far, the Republicans have not taken the bait, but they will because they always do and when they do, “Ola” they lose the only issue they are focused on to win the election. No matter what the Republicans do they won’t be able to use this issue in the campaign, so they might as well pass their best wish list for fixing the economy and make it something that hurts the communist Obama, and that he can’t undo in 2013.
I detest the Democrat Party but it is getting hard to watch the political shellackings the Republicans take because they don’t ever figure out these predicaments in time.