OVERBREADTH

[Introductory Disclaimer: I’m not actually as upset by this as I let on in the piece. In part, I took an angrier tone for comedic license. While the reaction was mixed, overall I think the tone backfired, as people felt generally that I was over-reacting. Fair enough. Interestingly, Peter Funt responded in the comments below.]

Two weeks ago, I wrote Five Ways Clinton Leads Obama. The article made the front page of DailyKos, which generates a fair deal of traffic. The idea of the piece was to poke fun at recent remarks by Senator Bayh, who suggested that electoral votes of states won should be the measure of success by the candidates.

DailyKos (3/24/08):

Senator Evan Bayh suggested we measure the success of the candidates not by delegates earned, but by the electoral votes of the states they’ve won. In the spirit of Senator Bayh, I present you with five additional metrics that I pulled out of my ass.

I like to think it was timely then, as Clinton surrogates were first testing the waters with this new (and absurd) metric. They must have realized, however, that this one didn’t play well, as they haven’t repeated the idea much over the last two weeks. Still, that didn’t keep Peter Funt from publishing a piece titled Metrics That Point to ‘C-L-I-N-T-O-N’ in the Washington Post today. Like me, he’s looking to make fun of the count-the-electoral-votes approach.

Peter Funt (4/07/08):

Hillary Clinton’s backers have tried to float the notion that she leads in “electoral votes” … So the Clinton campaign will soon need new talking points. These are the metrics they should be pushing:

I might mention also that the original title for my piece used the term “metrics” rather than “ways,” as you can see from the URL on my blog, where it was cross-posted. Am I being paranoid here? Surely he wouldn’t plagiarize the actual metrics themselves, right?

DailyKos (3/24/08):

Hillary Clinton has won New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. By contrast, Obama has failed to win a single state with the word “New” in its name. Obama’s failure among self-proclaimed new states, raises serious questions about his supposed strength among young voters (new people) and his supposed message of change (new policies).

Peter Funt (4/07/08):

Clinton has a remarkable lead over Obama in all the “New” states. In addition to her home state of New York, she has won in New Jersey, New Hampshire and New Mexico — giving her a clean sweep of the states that start with “New.” Obama has failed to win a single New state. (Stump line: “She wins the states where being new really matters!”)

Anyway, you be the judge. I’ll admit, there are differences between the articles. For example, whereas I discuss the “official state drink” of respective states, he discusses Starbucks.

There’s an interesting comment below the Peter Funt article:

Hi. I work with Peter Funt. Regarding the post by Peter Martin, as it happens, Peter Funt filed his column on March 24, but it didn’t run until today.

Must be something in the drinking water.

Brian

Just something you happened to feel like mentioning, Brian? (I hadn’t accused anyone of anything yet.) Is somebody getting mail that makes Brian feel compelled to share this tidbit of information? Anyway, it doesn’t do much to address concerns of plagiarism, given the date the DailyKos piece appeared on the front-page:

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:39:37 PM PDT

Actually it makes it worse. So, to Peter Funt, I say the following:

Peter,

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. As the heir to Candid Camera, it would have been easy to rest on your father’s laurels and simply copy his work. But you didn’t. You branched out and created an empire of television programming with such diverse shows as “Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles,” “Candid Camera: Battle of the Sexes,” “Candid Camera’s 50th Anniversary,” and countless other similarly-canceled “Candid Camera” shows.

As you explore beyond Candid Camera and submit Op-Ed pieces to the Washington Post, let me remind you that, unlike your father, you do not have my permission to use my work. YOU ARE NOT ON CANDID CAMERA AND I’M NOT SMILING.

-Cameron

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But it strikes me that there is, in fact, a more sincere form: it’s called citation.

Update: Let me put the argument more clearly:

On March 24, the Daily Kos ran a story that took the following form:

Open up with an introduction about the absurdity of suggesting electoral votes as a metric for determining that Clinton leads Obama. Proceed by identifying five (joke) metrics that also show Clinton leads Obama. Among those five, one identifies “new” states as a metric; another, the respective drinking habits of the states.

Also on March 24, Peter Funt submitted an op-ed to the Washington Post that took the following form:

Open up with an introduction about the absurdity of suggesting electoral votes as a metric for determining that Clinton leads Obama. Proceed by identifying five (joke) metrics that also show Clinton leads Obama. Among those five, one identifies “new” states as a metric; another, the respective drinking habits of the states.

Is this copyright infringement? The answer is clearly no. As has been pointed out in the comments on Daily Kos, the licensing policies there do not require any form of attribution.

Update II: As Peter Funt did me the service of responding politely (see comments), I’m happy to repost his response. I have been concerned today, that my post went too far–although I tried to be careful to frame it as a “you be the judge.” It’s also difficult to stay angry at anyone prepared to take a pot-shot at Jamie Kennedy. So, lets chalk this up to coincidence and unite around the common principle that Clinton’s campaign has jumped the shark.

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