Rand Paul has the Left in an absolute panic, and Rachel Maddow’s latest attempt to smear him was clear evidence of that fact. Maddow ran a segment in which she gleefully accused Rand Paul of “really really blatant plagiarism,” in regard to a speech in which he used a 1997 movie, Gattaca, as an analogy. Maddow ran about 50 seconds, sliced and diced into 4 soundbites, of Rand Paul’s actual speech, and spent the other five-and-a-half minutes of the segment yammering away. There are so many loose threads on this poorly stitched sweater that I’m almost not sure where to start…or if any rebuttal is necessary.
Maddow stated, “The speech that Rand Paul gave seems to be totally plagiarized from the Wikipedia page on Gattaca,” and continued by lecturing Paul that he’s foolish to consider running for president while thinking that he’s, “Going to get away with lifting your speeches from Wikipedia while you’re doing that.” While I could think of many ways to prove that her accusations are false, I think I’ll start with her own words:
“His speech overall was about being anti-abortion, and Ken Cuccinelli being very anti-abortion, and the theme he used to illustrate that was, basically he said that people who are pro-choice on the issue of abortion are sort of like the evil autocratic state in the movie Gattaca. They want to kill off anyone whose DNA aren’t approved of by society. Seriously that’s the argument.”
Where did Maddow find that on the Wikipedia page? She stated that Rand Paul’s “speech” was “totally plagiarized from the Wikipedia page on Gattaca,” but her own review of his speech disproves that accusation. She accused him of "lifting [his] speech from Wikipedia," but, like a prosecutor overcharging the defendant, she didn't even attempt to prove that he "lifted" the actual speech, or any portion of it other than a few descriptors of the plot of the movie---again, not the actual speech, or even the general concept (which can't be plagiarized anyway). Paul's use of the plot as an analogy, which he explicitly cited, and even signaled air-quotes as he described, falls squarely within what is known as "fair use" in the copyright context.
It's worth noting, though, that Politifact, which, like Maddow, specializes in willfully confusing fundamentals and non-essentials in order to pre-package opinions for uniformed readers or viewers, rated Maddow's accusation as, "True." Politifact is designed to re-air liberal attack lines under the guise of "fact-checking." They're cynical, dishonest, and a truly pathetic group of political hacks. These so-called "fact-checkers" merely reproduced the same four clips from Maddow's segment, after which they wrote, "Sensing a pattern? So are we"---a statement clearly intended to mislead the reader into thinking that they could go on, but don't need to since the "pattern" has been established. The link that they provide to Paul's speech is actually a link to a Washington Post article from a reporter who covered the speech, which interestingly contained no reference to the movie Gattaca. In other words, Politifact didn't even review Paul's actual speech, they simply rehashed Maddow's argument, threw-in a couple bare-ass opinions from so-called "experts," one of which they even identify as a Democrat, just so they can make it look like they did some research. According to Politifact's standards, Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz, or anyone else who posses a threat to the Left, couldn't get away with saying that the "sky is blue" without meeting "factual" resistance, but Politifact thinks that they've done there due diligence in regard to Maddow's claims? Or maybe they just don't think…
“His speech overall was about being anti-abortion, and Ken Cuccinelli being very anti-abortion, and the theme he used to illustrate that was, basically he said that people who are pro-choice on the issue of abortion are sort of like the evil autocratic state in the movie Gattaca. They want to kill off anyone whose DNA aren’t approved of by society. Seriously that’s the argument.”
Where did Maddow find that on the Wikipedia page? She stated that Rand Paul’s “speech” was “totally plagiarized from the Wikipedia page on Gattaca,” but her own review of his speech disproves that accusation. She accused him of "lifting [his] speech from Wikipedia," but, like a prosecutor overcharging the defendant, she didn't even attempt to prove that he "lifted" the actual speech, or any portion of it other than a few descriptors of the plot of the movie---again, not the actual speech, or even the general concept (which can't be plagiarized anyway). Paul's use of the plot as an analogy, which he explicitly cited, and even signaled air-quotes as he described, falls squarely within what is known as "fair use" in the copyright context.
This is the key point: She rhetorically accuses him of plagiarizing the actual speech, "lifting [it] from Wikipedia," but only attempts to prove that he plagiarized the portion of the speech in which he described the plot of a movie. The Wikipedia page was not about a speech, which used the plot of the movie Gattaca as an example of the concept of eugenics, and how that concept relates to abortion---but it would have had to been in order for Paul to have plagiarized it. The description of a plot cannot be copyrighted, especially by a third-party, and plagiarism is mostly a judgment call that uses copyright law as a guideline. How could Wikipedia claim to own the words used to describe a plot, many of which are used both in the movie itself, and in the promotional trailers and descriptions of the movie, when those words are not unique "creative works," but rather secondary descriptors of someone else's work? They don't; only Maddow and the rest of her feral pack of rabid anti-Rand Leftists make that claim.
“Plagiarism” is a sloppy term without a legal definition; it comprises the grey area where proper scholarship ends, and generally before copyright infringement begins---its an intellectual or academic crime. Sloppy concepts are Maddow’s specialty, though, as they allow her to shuffle around fundamentals and non-essentials like a street hustler running a game of three card monte. The fact that Paul’s words are substantially similar to the words on the Wikipedia page is a non-essential when the the nature of text in question is a movie plot. Furthermore, plagiarism requires that the individual pass the work off as their own, but, as the first clip of Paul’s speech shows, he did exactly the opposite, stating: “In the movie Gattaca,” followed by air-quotes as he began describing the plot, “In the not too distant future…” He both 1) credited the movie, and 2) provided air-quotes to indicate he was referencing someone else's language. End of argument.
It's worth noting, though, that Politifact, which, like Maddow, specializes in willfully confusing fundamentals and non-essentials in order to pre-package opinions for uniformed readers or viewers, rated Maddow's accusation as, "True." Politifact is designed to re-air liberal attack lines under the guise of "fact-checking." They're cynical, dishonest, and a truly pathetic group of political hacks. These so-called "fact-checkers" merely reproduced the same four clips from Maddow's segment, after which they wrote, "Sensing a pattern? So are we"---a statement clearly intended to mislead the reader into thinking that they could go on, but don't need to since the "pattern" has been established. The link that they provide to Paul's speech is actually a link to a Washington Post article from a reporter who covered the speech, which interestingly contained no reference to the movie Gattaca. In other words, Politifact didn't even review Paul's actual speech, they simply rehashed Maddow's argument, threw-in a couple bare-ass opinions from so-called "experts," one of which they even identify as a Democrat, just so they can make it look like they did some research. According to Politifact's standards, Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz, or anyone else who posses a threat to the Left, couldn't get away with saying that the "sky is blue" without meeting "factual" resistance, but Politifact thinks that they've done there due diligence in regard to Maddow's claims? Or maybe they just don't think…
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