Blogger claims Palin pilfered a line from Gingrich -- her replacement as keynote speaker at tonight's House-Senate GOP dinner

The question on seemingly every blogger’s mind today: Will Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin attend tonight’s House-Senate Republican Dinner in Washington? 

(UPDATE: She did attend. She didn't speak. The crowd cheered. Gingrich graciously acknowledged her and Todd. At the same time he spoke, Fox News broadcast a taped interview with Palin. They raised nearly $15 million.)

Palin, as you may recall, was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the dinner, a joint fundraiser for the Senate and House Republican campaign committees, until she dropped out and was replaced by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. 

At the time, Palin said she could not commit to speaking at the dinner because of her duties as governor in Juneau.

But last week, according to the Associated Press, Palin's advisors told organizers that the former Republican vice presidential candidate would be in Washington today – and would like to attend the dinner. The festivities are scheduled to start soon on the East Coast. 

Palin was offered a seat at the head table at the event but not a speaking role -- an arrangement that Palin, a probable 2012 presidential contender, was apparently not pleased with. After a week of speculation about whether she would attend, it's now looking likely that she will, according to the AP.

But the brouhaha isn’t finished. Over the weekend, a blogger accused Palin of plagiarizing in a recent speech.

Geoffrey Dunn, who is working on a book about Palin, wrote in the Huffington Post that in a recent speech she lifted language from a 2005 article written by – wait for it – Gingrich.

Dunn cites several similarities between Gingrich’s article and the speech, which Palin gave....

...at an Alaska event as an introduction for Michael Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan’s son.

For example, at one point in the speech, Palin said: "We have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people."

That sounds an awful lot like what Gingrich (and his co-author Craig Shirley) wrote in their article: "Reagan never won an argument in Washington. Reagan won his arguments in the country with the American people .... "

A lawyer for Palin today denied the charges, saying the speech gave proper credit to the former House speaker. Palin referenced Gingrich -- another possible 2012 presidential contender -- twice during the speech. At one point, near the beginning she said that Gingrich "had written a good article about Reagan."

And a spokesman for Gingrich told Politico that the former speaker had no problem with the language of Palin’s speech. “I’m thrilled if Sarah Palin used a Newt Gingrich idea from an op-ed, or speech, or column or whatever,” Rick Tyler said.

Meanwhile, you can read our colleague Elizabeth Snead’s take at The Dish Rag.

-- Kate Linthicum

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Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Comments

[Michael Fiala]

I seem to remember the current VP, Joe Biden, had to drop his presidential bid for DIRECTLY plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, then-leader of the British Labour Party.
This article lacks balance.

[DL13]

The last I heard was that Newt had no problem with what Palin said, so, what's the issue? Oh, you mean you absolutely despise someone with a different point of view than yours exercising their rights to free speech as guaranteed by the 1st Amendment? Is that what you mean? We have names of people with similar attitudes. Names like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro and Pol Pot. Together they executed over 100 million of their own people in order to establish and maintain their agenda. If these people are your heroes, then you've got problems. You ever thought of going back to church? Maybe the priest can pray for you and a miracle can occur. Oh, you don't believe in God? Well, what kind of god do you believe in? Karl Marx and Secular Progressivism? Oh, OK, sorry, I should have known. All is forgiven, I thought I would be up 'til midnight praying for your lost soul, but I won't have to now. All you will have to do is drink a little bit of that Kool-Aid and all will be well. You ever thought of sharing a little bit of it with the rest of us. I was told it can help someone hallucinate better than LSD. If that's the case we will all want some of it, in fact we will probably be beating down your doors to get it. If you are a good capitalist you could even make a lot of money selling it, and then, you could go out and help all those people that are in need; just look at what you could do, so, please think about it, won't you?
Take care....

[DocV52]

Please take not of the research I've done and provided for you?

I happen to be one who deeply appreciates Gov. Palin and who DOES NOT appreciate the garbage and lies thrown at her. WHY? Is Obama not questioned about his motives? WHY? Is he not questioned about his arrogance and pridefulness when as an example, Pres, Bush couldn't chuckle in public without it being ridiculed or taken apart as an expression of HIS arrogance.
Let's look at something with just one piece, one small, mini-byte of common sense information. If YOU, one of YOUR PEERS, or I went into a bankruptcy court and explained to our creditors and the judge that we had SPENT OODLES of MONEY to get ourselves OUT of debt. Our creditors would fight our bankruptcy every step of the way and we'd be lucky if the judge didn't have us evaluated for competency and STILL ASSIGN a trustee to oversee our accounts! And you people KNOW THAT!
FURTHER, being journalists, ALL OF YOU are WELL AWARE SPEAKING the author's name in reference to a "piece" being used in a speech is all that;s ethically or legally required when using another's material to prevent charges of plagiarism. STILL . . . true to form . . . the print media this time, attempts to manipulate the American public. I am embarrassed to be a writer.

But not so ashamed as to not post this in order to fight back for a fine lady!

AS POSTED ON www.twitter.com ON MON. 8 JUNE 2009 AT THE LOS ANGELES TIMES “TWITTER” PAGE: “Blogger claims Palin pilfered from Gingrich -- her replacement as keynote speaker at tonight's House-Senate GOP .. http://bit.ly/nB6zoabout 5 hours ago from twitterfeed”

ARTICLE HEADLINE: “Blogger claims Palin pilfered a line from Gingrich -- her replacement as keynote speaker at tonight's House-Senate GOP dinner” [apparent LA Times author} -- Kate Linthicum; Posted by LA Times Blog Writer: Andrew Malcolm

As reads: (with my notations)

“Geoffrey Dunn, (Award winning, reported Reagan expert, liberal journalist.) who is working on a book about Palin, wrote in the Huffington Post1 that in a recent speech she lifted language from a 2005 article written by – wait for it – Gingrich.”

“Dunn cites several similarities between Gingrich’s article and the speech, which Palin gave....”

“...at an Alaska event as an introduction for Michael Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan’s son.”

“For example, at one point in the speech, Palin said: ‘We have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won* the arguments by resonating* with the American people.’" (*emphasis mine)

[2“...sounds an awful lot like what Gingrich (and his co-author Craig Shirley) wrote in their article: [3 ‘Reagan never won an argument in Washington. Reagan won his arguments in the country with the American people .... ‘"

“A lawyer for Palin today denied the charges, saying the speech gave proper credit to the former House speaker. Palin referenced Gingrich -- another possible 2012 presidential contender -- twice during the speech. At one point, near the beginning she (Gov. Palin) said that Gingrich ‘had written a good article about Reagan.’"

“And a spokesman for Gingrich told Politico4 that the former speaker had no problem with the language of Palin’s speech. ‘I’m thrilled if Sarah Palin used a Newt Gingrich idea from an op-ed, or speech, or column or whatever,’ said Rick Tyler5 .“

Endnotes:
1 Huffington Post: is an American liberal news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, featuring various news sources and columnists. The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet and liberal alternative to conservative news aggregators like the Drudge Report, and has expanded to cover news of politics.2 Notation mine.3 Notation mine.4 The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage includes Congress, Washington lobbying, and the 2008 presidential election. John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei left The Washington Post to become Politico's editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively. Politico is financed by Robert Allbritton, chairman and chief executive of Allbritton Communications, which owns television stations in Washington and elsewhere, and is an affiliate of Disney-owned ABC. Frederick J. Ryan Jr., former Assistant to President Ronald Reagan[2], and currently chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, is president and CEO of Politico.[3]5 Rick Tyler Rick Tyler has worked for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for the last nine years. He currently serves as his Spokesperson. Rick is also the Founding Director of Renewing American Leadership, a 501 c3 organization dedicated to defending and advancing American civilization by restoring our Judeo-Christian heritage.

[X Flores]

YOW!!
This reference to a bloggers comments about Palin seems to have hit a vein of fools gold. I'm surprised there are still people willing to come to her defense. If they didn't see through her shallow and ignorant facade in the past election they never will.
More interesting in the article is the spat among the celebs of the GOP. Either she finally recognized that more public exposure actually has negative effects for her next campaign to office or this is evidence of the rift in the party between those who know that Palin is liable to further diminish the anemic Republican party and those that are willing, in desperation, to put their support behind a completely empty "candidate" even at the very expense of their own political organization. Their aim seems to be getting a shell in a position of power (like their last leader) then manage him/ her to carry out their dangerous and ill-informed agenda. Ironically, he and Cheney were playing the same game: get into office by saying anything the polls indicated would give them the highest numbers. After fooling the voters and getting into office they chucked the role and did whatever the hell they and their big money providers wanted. Not surprising that the office holders' conduct bore little resemblance to the candidates promises. In the process they did enormous damage to every realm of influence possible: the environment, world-wide violent extremism, the Middle East conflict, US leadership in science, the respect and influence that the US once held in the world. They can't be blamed for the entirety of the financial ruin but they put the final nails in the economic coffin by supporting policies that helped bring about the greedy schemes that finally collapsed and then by panicky,inept motions to try to hold the reins just till they could gladly jump off and out of the arena.

[Anna]

We have an elected president, Barack Obama, who during the presidential campaign used not only a line but whole paragraphs of other people's speeches in some of his speeches. Today he cannot speak one sentence clearly without a teleprompter. So, what if Palin did use a line from Gingrich. That means they are two intelligent Republican leaders who share some of the same views. If the Republicans have no problem with this, why should anyone else?

[R.I.P. GOP]

Sarah WHO?

[steve rodriguez]

The media fears Sarah Palin, the LA Times is part of the media!

Amen to DocV2!
Please take not of the research I've done and provided for you?

I happen to be one who deeply appreciates Gov. Palin and who DOES NOT appreciate the garbage and lies thrown at her. WHY? Is Obama not questioned about his motives? WHY? Is he not questioned about his arrogance and pridefulness when as an example, Pres, Bush couldn't chuckle in public without it being ridiculed or taken apart as an expression of HIS arrogance.