Plagiarism

There used to be a "quiz" floating around Facebook or LiveJournal a few years ago. You'd answer a few questions about your politics and personality, and it would tell you which New York Times columnist you were. I remember that I was ecstatic when it told me I was Maureen Dowd, because at that point in my life I ate up her shrill diatribes against the Bush administration.

In her column yesterday, Maureen Dowd plagiarized. This isn't one of those "gray area" times when it seems plausible that these could have been her own words.

Dowd's column on Sunday:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Blogger Josh Marshall on Thursday:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Dowd's explanation defies logic:

josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

So instead of directly plagiarizing Marshall, she plagiarized her friend who plagiarized Marshall?

Most liberal arts professors include a link to Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity on their syllabi and inform us that these rules apply to everything we write for the course. Plagiarism is not tolerated, and the penalties are serious.

Why should there be a different standard for professional writers? Dowd's explanation wouldn't save a Cornell student from failing a course, so why should Dowd keep her job? Maybe this sounds like an overreaction, but I think the same rules need to apply to both professional and student writers.