Butrflynet wrote:I was asking how, you, as an advocate of a presidential candidate would have responded to accusations of plagarism against that candidate as it unfolded in this thread? What would you have done differently as an advocate of that candidate?
Then, as an advocate of that candate, how would you have responded to people labeling you in derogatory terms because of your responses to those accusations about the candidate you support?
Well if the accusations were true, I certainly wouldn't attempt to deny it. Particularly if the matter was relatively trivial and the act involved no more than borrowing, without acknowledgement, some well-chosen phrases from someone else, and not an attempt to otherwise deceive -- as appears to be the case in this instance. I would quickly recognize that any attempt to deny that it was plagiarism, would only discredit me in the eyes of a rational, discriminating observer. Attempting to defend the indefensible is a reliable hallmark of a fanatic.
In short I would have immediately admitted the fault, and noted its limited character.
If I had instead tried to weasel out of the obvious, and was called on it by some clear-headed and discerning person, I would realize that I was creating a problem for myself where none really existed, and very quickly recant. The first law of holes is - when you are in one, stop digging.
If I also detected that my fellow supporters of the unnamed candidate were doing this as well, I would reflect on this for a while and do what I could to make them understand that I and they, by our foolish behavior were making our own campaign look bad in the eyes of the undecided, and possibly helping to create some harmful illusions on the part of our hero himself.
For people in positions of great responsibility and consequence it is generally of critical importance that they stay focused on their own errors, weaknesses, and mistakes, lest they become the chief consumers of their own propaganda. Organizations that excessively reinforce the leader's assumed infallibility do him/her no favors. Political campaigns, for all their hype, waste and folly, are pretty good at exposing weaknesses of all kinds in both the candidate and the campaign. As we have seen, candidates, particularly new faces, can rise - and fall, very quickly. If I was an Obama advisor I would warn him about this and urge him to act quickly create a different atmosphere among his followers, and to anxiously guard against hubris on his own part and on that of his closest advisors.
Frankly, the fact that any of this should be said at all is not a good omen for the campaign which you apparently support so strongly. Someone who tells you an unpleasant truth while you still have time to fix it is not your enemy: one who sees an error and remains supportively silent is not really your friend. I find it very remarkable that you resist all this as much as you do.
