Just don't take the credit.

Look, I remember many things that have been written over the years, obscure quotes, legends, myths, religious texts, name it...but I RARELY remember the source (I have no idea why I don't), but the way I see it, best thing to do if you have no idea where a line or idea came from, but you know its not your own, say so.

"Someone once said...I can't remember where I heard this but...etc."

Just don't pretend its your own idea.

I am going with accident.

With the way that folks like Miss (for life) Dowd recite things they have read or heard, rather than creating anything new, I can see how this could innocently happen.

Wild guess is that her friend is cut from the same cloth.

"Down by the trash can"* the other day, some guy was spouting a bunch of scripted anti-Limbaugh/Hannity talking points as if they were his own. I have heard other people spouting exactly the same thing, same words, and I doubt any of these people know each other. They heard it on their favorite MSNBC/CNN show, or someplace similar, took it as Holy, then spread(ed? :) the word.

I could see that man write the same thing and not know who to give credit to, since it is his belief and the wording is convenient.

I am no fan of Miss Dowd either. Just my feeling for this time. BTW, were there any Dowdifications in the article (joining unrelated quotes with an ellipsis)? That is her true claim to fame.

*Our 'smoking pit' has a big covered trash can where people set their drinks and chitchat across it like a table.

It's not dishonesty or sloppiness, it's royal privilege. The lowly blogging peasant should be deeply honored that Her Majesty at the New York Times has deigned to notice his writing. He should bow deeply before her 3 times and kiss the ground at her feet before scurrying away.

I think there is a paradox here.

If a stolen quote is from a columnist no one reads, is it still plagiarism?

I'm not sure if these people are idiots or just have no moral qualms about copying (I'd be so embarrassed if I were a write and was accused of plagiarism!).

I went to a very good public high school with excellent English classes. We not only learned the art of thesis writing, but how to carefully document our work. We would be lambasted for "dropping quotes" - quoting without a lead in or immediate explanation. Being caught plagiarizing meant a conference with your parent, teacher and a guidence counselor and then a suspension. Not to mention an F on that assignment. Since we were all taught how to correctly site works and use quotes to really develop our writing (MLA format) it was rarely an issue.

When I got to college it was surprising how many people simply don't know how to compose a paper (main thesis with several supporting paragraphs to develop the thesis; each developmental paragraph has at least two separate pieces of evidence, which were generally presented with quotes from the literature we were studying). Research papers had footnotes and bibliographies.

I fucking loved English class.

> I am going with accident.

How? How could it be an accident? How is that possible?

Every time one of these scandals happens there are a few people who say "Well, I understand how this could happen." I'm not one of them!

Of all the shit I've written on blogs, there are probably 500 jokes stolen from PJ O'Rourke and similar sources. They're the equivalent of catch phrases from last season's Saturday Night Live... And where there's no attribution at all, the wording has probably been mangled so badly that no one would be certain I meant to say what the original source said.

But how can you "go with accident" in cases like this, which are so obviously about the "cut" and "paste" functions of the modern microcomputer operating system?

Dowd has always been sloppy writer. But to say that she "accidentally" quoted verbatim another writer stretches the imagination.

When I got to college it was surprising how many people simply don't know how to compose a paper....

My wife has gone back to school online to finish her Bachelor's degree. I've helped her with a few of her group papers and am appalled at the lack of writing skills exhibited by many of her classmates. Their paragraphs are vague and rambling, their sentences run on, their grammar is atrocious (apostrophes for plural, no noun-verb agreement, etc.), they don't cite references when copying verbatim, etc.

This scandal brings me tremendous pleasure.

Marshall himself has a nice series of comments.

McCardle also gets some licks in, by quoting (with link & attribution!) a blogger who exposes the fantastic nature of Dowd's excuse. And McArdle's own scenario for the theft is damns more than it exonerates.

Cosh and others are snarking, too. Reason mag and Kaus have yet to be heard from.

This is a good day!

I'm sorry for the typo!

Subtract "is"

Bad day to be making typos, right?

How? How could it be an accident? How is that possible?

Exactly the way she stated plus she heard someone using similar phrasing to what she already thought.

I am sure someone else wrote the same thing I did in the previous sentence before me, but I do not recall reading those words from anybody else so I am not going to use quotes.

Suki and I do what Amy does when we see interesting quotes on Hit & Run when we post to our blog. We see all sorts of things that we forget to post, so I am starting to track them and hope to dump them in on the weekends.

Recently someone (SugarFree at H&R?) wrote something to the effect "he is not heterosexist, he is heterosexual. There is a difference. Heterosexuality is a normal choice too you know.", but it was longer than that and was just like something I wrote in a book (long before his posting) and I am pretty positive SugarFree did not read it from me. I don't remember reading what I wrote anyplace else either and felt no need to search the globe for someone who did.

That is my feeling on this one anyway. Quite the opposite of her Dowdifications that have no defense at all.

"Since we were all taught how to correctly site works..." You mean ".... cite works ..."? Sounds like a good English class to me, cause I hate it when they go picking on your spelling.

Sorry, Gretchen, just kidding with you. It could have been a type, right? I'll go with that.

Typo, I meant. Haha! I believe it now.

> Exactly the way she stated plus
> she heard someone...

Follow McArdle's link. Go ahead. Read it. Dowd's scenario is essentially a metaphysical impossibility. Diddenhappin.

The best defense is that wires got crossed by one of her assistants— some sap of an underpaid grad student who can't afford a tall coffee in a Times Square Starbucks, a tragically overworked indigent who who shares a one-bedroom with three other people (two of whom have some disruptive sexual preference) and living without health insurance, but who enjoys thinking of his/herself as being near the center of the opinion business.

And then you ask yourself: Why would Dowd rely on such a person anyway? Why isn't a person of Dowd's stature –as Cosh calls her, "inconceivably well-compensated"– carrying her own load anyway? How many words is she expected to generate each week... Is it even one thousand? Isn't a figure of her centrality in American opinion expected to be so intellectually and politically horny that they wouldn't want help from little people in executing a seduction?

> Typo, I meant. Haha!

See? This is making us all giddy.

Wow! All of life's a circle!

It wasn't Marshall who "himself has a nice series of comments", as I put it earlier today... It was another guy named Joshua who was posting on Marshall's TPM blog. (The Man himself wouldn't likely have composed a more effective and temperate notice of Dowd's theft. In mistaking the author of the post, I was struck by Marshall's humility.)

Golly, is my face red! If I'd been paying better attention to the sexual preferences of the bloggers we all enjoy, it might not have have happened. Someone needs to come up with a Firefox extension to prevent these humiliations.

Just finished a long deadline day, agree with Crid above, going to check out those links.

Something else I noticed right now -- she writes "josh" and "josh marshall." I look dubiously on people over 12 who are too lazy to use capital letters. And this is an "inconceivably well-compensated" columnist, in Cosh's words. For The New York Times. She can't be bothered? To me, that suggests a lot.

> I look dubiously on people over
> 12 who are too lazy to use
> capital letters

Word... (Though I still feel bad for harshing Eric [eric] about it here once when I was on my period.) A fellow named Goldfarb also took notice. After this long day, we're left to wonder what a Dowd column would look like if she didn't have feeders on one end and proofreaders on the other.

Please don't let this day end! Just a little more....!

Wonkette/Layne distressing fails to acknowledge an 'ass being fact-checked'...

...and I would kill to have done the takedown of proudgrampa made by misterloki within single minute of Monday morning.

That last one was particularly satisfying, Crid.

Awaiting action from the NYT on their golden goosie. I'm guessing I'll be awaiting and awaiting and awaiting, despite the fact that she didn't seem to have the decency to come up with a lie that would pass muster with anyone with an IQ over freezing.

despite the fact that she didn't seem to have the decency to come up with a lie that would pass muster with anyone with an IQ over freezing.

HEY! I have not seen all of the evidence yet. It may still fail muster with me.

When people relay information verbally that they read some time before, they rarely get the exact wording so precisely. That another writer could then take this regurgitated idea and get the string of words SO close to the original source, minus the direct Bush bashing, is incredible. Clearly this person plagiarized the quote and didn't take the time to even really rewrite it. Very, very sad.

It appears the truth is even worse than the lie, or why isn't she telling it? Is it that others write her column? What's your thought?

Slate weighs in on the matter:

http://www.slate.com/id/2218602/

...she writes "josh" and "josh marshall." I look dubiously on people over 12 who are too lazy to use capital letters.

Maybe she plagiarized e.e. cummings.

"It appears the truth is even worse than the lie"

Perhaps NONE of the NYT editorial writers actually write their own columns, so she has to cover their asses, as well as her own? They do all get paid enough to hire plenty of flunkies to do all the drudgery while they take the glory. And if Madoff can claim with a straight face that his scheme was a 1-man operation...

From now on, any passage from Maureen Dowd that is merely tedious without being also cutesy and twee will be suspect.