More about the bogus British report Powell Quoted at UN

[Jimbo]

It is a good thing Tony Blair is not in your class John, else he would be standing in the corner rather than governing Great Britain. John, when your students plagarized material was the material still accurate?

[Jimbo]

andyfox,

I do hope your post was tongue in cheek. I respect your opinion and hope you do not believe a lay person has better intelligence information the the President of the United States.

At any rate you can all whine to your hearts content but we will still bomb Iraq. I suppose the result is more important than the resistance along the way.

[John Cole]

Jimbo,

Sadly, not always. In addition, I will usually ask them to find up to date sources. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

John

[John Cole]

Jimbo,

You might see David Halberstam's book The Fifties, which details how the Pentagon lied to Ike concerning the Soviet arms build-up.

John

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the suggestion John. I am sure I wouild enjoy and find useful any book you might recommend. By the way I got bluffed at the poker table once, the next time he checkraised me on the river I called and he showed me the nuts. Guess you just never know, sometimes the pot is so big you just have to call.

[MMMMMM]

Well, maybe this should be examined a little more critically, then. I haven't had time to delve into this matter beyond the surface--I've only scanned an article or two which raised, in my mind, more questions than they answered:

1) Did Powell claim the material was all original? He wasn't writing a term paper;-) Is there anything necessarily wrong with an intelligence report which includes both new and old information? Should Powell have been expected to footnote everything? And more importantly--and this may be key--did he actually present the old information as being new, or is this something critics are claiming on shaky ground?

2) Does the existence of dated information (which may provide valuable background information) in any way lessen the importance of current news?

4) Regarding classified information: It's often classified for good reason. I assume you aren't advocating the US government declassify everything relevant.

5) I actually don't care much if Powell copied portions of the report as long as it is accurate. If he were handing in a term paper, I'd say give him the boot. The purpose of the report was to provide strong circumstantial evidence. Did he lie in the report, did he grossly misrepresent matters? Or did he simply hash together as much background and current information as he could, possibly in a hurry?

6) Degree of intellectual dishonesty matters too. What may be a little intellectual dishonesty in the eyes of one may simply be slipshod compilation of data in the eyes of another.

7) I agree that our government (and probably all governments) has a history of trusting too little in the critical thinking skills of the public, and that too much secrecy in government may become a tool of authoritarian regimes or worse. Vigilance is important in preserving freedom. However I do get the impression (my first light impression, granted) that people may be reading too much into this Powell report matter from the outset.

We'll hear a lot about this in the next few days, and we'll have more time to assimilate some of the information that will be forthcoming.

[MMMMMM]

Let me just add that I've always had the strong impression--call it an intuition, if you will--that Colin Powell is a very straight shooter. In addition, he has historically been one of the most dovish members of the administration, and he definitely was on the dovish side about not removing Saddam 12 years ago. So based entirely on my impression of the man himself, I'd think that the worst in this instance would be out of character for him. Well, let's see what develops over the next few days.

[IrishHand]

I have failed students when one, yes one, word has been plagiarized.
Umm...that's impossible (plagiarizing a word, not you failing them). Unless we're talking about some sort of copyright issue, using the same word that someone else did in a literary work can never be plagiarism.

plagiarize:
transitive senses : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
intransitive senses : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Carry on... [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[John Cole]

Irish,

Two students both used the word "innovative" to describe a director's technique. Neither could know whether the film was innovative or not, and, I while I agree that they really didn't plagiarize "one" word, they might not have been able to supply an appropriate synonym if asked. Therefore, if they said, "The director's technique was ordinary" when asked for a synonym, lifting the word "innovative" might constitute an instance of plagiarism of a single word.

John

[MMMMMM]

When I first heard--Reagan, I think it was--use the word "normalcy" I was taken aback. Over the years, however, it seems a lot of politicians have plagiarized it;-)