Stealing
As an academic of the nerdiest variety, I have real serious problems with acts of plagiarism. Passing off the words of others as your own is the worst kind of offense to everything the academy stands for -- where we are given daily the chance to put our name to something and say "this is what I can do" on the path to fulfillment through formal education.

Somewhere in the middle of the semester, after [most of] my students have figured out they should trust me and listen to me, I tell them that integrity isn't something they're born with, but something they develop and learn to believe in over time by demonstrating to themselves that, first, they can be honest, and second, that it feels good. School gives you the chance to do that every day consciously: you do your homework, put your name on it, answer a question in class without someone whispering to you, that sort of thing.

So many kids go through thinking that the primary goal is to convince me, or their parents, or friends, that they are capable/talented, and they forget that along the way, if their achievements are not honorable, they will have convinced themselves of just the opposite with no way out--a self-cynicism spiral. It's usually the quiet ones.

An F can be an honorable grade, I always tell them (sometimes to confused looks). It's not worth sacrificing yourself just to avoid one.

BUT, this post isn't about that, believe it or not. This post is about a plagiarism that does not much concern me. Most candidates/politicians are not just individuals, I'm sorry to say, but small communities of like-minded folks. We know that most of the things President Bush says are not his own words. We don't frankly want him sitting around writing speeches all day, and can you imagine how long it would take him anyway? Part of the job of a candidate's team is to come up with ways to present ideas and visions and criticism of an opponent that will be the most persuasive.

So, where does a candidate's team stop being a legitimate pool for shared wording and instead become *outside* but like-minded supporters? To be sure, Sherrod Brown's team, running for Senator in Ohio, should have contacted blogger Nathan Newman and asked permission to use his wording in a letter to Republican incumbent Mike Dewine, and having not gotten permission, should have apologized if he was offended, but he was not. Kos reiterates what most bloggers including myself generally feel about public officials who share a policy goal: use me. And Atrios, in his own typically funny way, says the same thing.