XPost: alt.america, alt.journalism, alt.politics.obama   
   XPost: dc.politics   
   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
   The recent charges of plagiarism against both Democratic   
   presidential candidates demonstrate that there are no ground   
   rules about plagiarism in public speaking.   
      
   Politicians are not professional academics, and the strict   
   plagiarism rules that apply to professors do not make sense when   
   they're applied to orators. By the standards employed by some   
   campaigns and commentators, not only would Barack Obama and   
   Hillary Clinton be guilty of plagiarism, but so would Martin   
   Luther King, Jr.   
      
   Many of Dr. King's speeches and sermons, including "I Have A   
   Dream," were heavily dependent on others' work. Yet no one   
   seriously accuses King of plagiarism in "I Have A Dream." With   
   King's example in mind, I propose the following three rules for   
   evaluating charges of oratorical plagiarism:   
      
   • Rule No. 1: If it's transformative, it's not plagiarism.   
   King's "Let freedom ring" run at the end of "I Have A Dream" was   
   based on a 1952 speech by Archibald Carey, a Chicago preacher   
   and political activist. Carey, like King, recited the lyrics of   
   America with an image of great bells of freedom pealing from   
   every state in the nation. But the similarity does not mean King   
   plagiarized. King added the repeated phrase "Let freedom ring,"   
   giving the material a call-and-response feel, and he changed   
   Carey's imagery to add assonance and rhythm. (For example,   
   Carey's "the Green Mountains and the White Mountains of Vermont   
   and New Hampshire" became "the prodigious hilltops of New   
   Hampshire," with the internal rhyme on the short "i" sound and   
   the balanced rhythms of "hilltops" and "Hampshire.")   
   Under this rule, Obama's "Yes we can" is not plagiarized from   
   César Chávez's famous rallying cry, "Sí se puede," because it is   
   transformative: The refrain changes in Obama's translation   
   (which is not the literal "Yes, it can be done" or "Yes, it is   
   possible"), and its context changes from the 1972 protest   
   against Arizona's farmworker labor laws to a more general call   
   to heal the nation.   
      
   • Rule No. 2: If it's from a speechwriter or adviser, it's not   
   plagiarism. King heavily edited his aides' drafts for "I Have A   
   Dream," keeping what he liked and discarding or reworking   
   material he felt didn't suit him.   
   Some sentences ended up in the speech verbatim, however, such   
   as: "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not   
   be guilty of wrongful deeds." But this is not plagiarism; King's   
   advisers wanted him to use their words.   
      
   Similarly, Hillary Clinton's advisers correctly argue President   
   Clinton's 1993 Inaugural Address did not plagiarize "force the   
   spring" from Father Tim Healy, the former president of   
   Georgetown University. The phrase came from a letter Healy wrote   
   to Bill Clinton that suggested language for the inaugural. And   
   Obama's lines from Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts are not,   
   as Hillary Clinton put it in last Thursday's University of Texas   
   debate, "change you can Xerox," an inappropriate use of   
   another's words: Patrick was advising Obama on his speeches and   
   encouraged Obama to use the lines.   
      
   • Rule No. 3: If it's from a widely known source, such as the   
   Bible or the founding documents of America, it's not plagiarism.   
   King's speeches, like most civil rights oratory, drew on two   
   primary sources: The Bible and the founding documents of   
   America. King quotes the Declaration of Independence and the   
   Bible in "I Have A Dream," but he does not always attribute the   
   sources. He says "we will not be satisfied until justice rolls   
   down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream," for   
   example, but does not acknowledge he is quoting God's words to   
   Israel in Amos 5:24.   
   Yet King did not plagiarize Amos; some sources are so embedded   
   in our national consciousness that it is appropriate to use   
   their words without attribution.   
      
   Hillary Clinton has occasionally used the phrase "send me" in   
   her speeches, and some have suggested that she lifted it from   
   her husband. Even if that is correct, it is not plagiarism   
   because it is based on Isaiah's response to God's call: "Here am   
   I. Send me." (Isaiah 6:8)   
      
   When I speak on King's oratory, many audiences, especially those   
   familiar with charges of plagiarism in his academic work, want   
   to know whether he plagiarized the phrase, "I Have A Dream." The   
      
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