Reply #32: sorry, but this is a silly thread [View All]

[readytoblowagasket]

Hillary got a standing ovation last night. The audience apparently thought she was great. That's because her anecdote about the wounded vets was vivid and riveting. She mesmerized the crowd. So while she did recycle Bill's line about "the hits I've taken," she reconceptualized it to her own experience, and therefore made it hers. Not to mention, it's much more poignant when Hillary says it in 2008 than when Bill said it in 1992.

As for the John Edwards echo, again, she made it hers.

Obama did not plagiarize nearly as competently as Hillary did. Deval Patrick's original speeches were much better than Obama's abbreviated regurgitations.

Moral of the story is: If you're going to plagiarize, make it better than the original. Or, as Richard Posner said:

The harm is not to the reader but to those writers whose work does not glitter with stolen gold.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200204/posner