Terry Cowgill

Funder’s Keepers?

August 21, 2006 on 1:36 pm | In Main, Media |

Note: Go to end of this entry for an update and message from John Fund.

Do great minds think alike or did someone from a prominent national publication borrow my material without asking or crediting me?

I pose this question because as I was eating my lunch today, I was reading two or three national news articles I had picked off the Internet, including a piece by John Fund on The Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com. Fund, who is currently on leave as a member of The Journal’s editorial board, writes OpinionJournal.com’s “Political Diary” column.

Fund wrote an interesting piece on President’s Bush’s failure to communicate more clearly his vision for the future, especially on the war in Iraq. Then he complained about the contemporary caricature, popularized by many mainstream Democrats, that Bush is stupid because he is inarticulate.

Einstein, Fund wrote, was obviously brilliant, but inarticulate. Gee, I wrote almost exactly the same thing in a Aug. 16 posting, Tweedledumb or Tweedledumber. Then he used radio host Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo as another example of someone who was both smart and verbally clumsy. Wait a minute.

Einstein as an example is one thing, but what are the odds he could have picked Russo out of the air as a second example without having read my blog? And what about Fund stating, as I did, that Einstein was prone to “malapropisms” and that Russo’s knowledge of sports is “encyclopedic?”

I have pasted below the material in question:

First mine:

At that point, I realized again why Gene is my favorite radio host: he asked the caller exactly the same question I wanted to ask (great minds think alike!). “Do you think Albert Einstein was smart?” — to which the caller replied, “Of course.” Einstein was dyslexic, Burns noted, and his lectures were said by those who attended them to be difficult to follow and full of malapropisms. In other words, much like our president, the author of the Theory of Relativity did not speak well off-the-cuff.

Bush is among those in the public eye who exhibits the classic symptoms of dyslexia. For sports fans, another who comes to mind is Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, a talk radio personality at WFAN in New York. Russo is a graduate of Darrow School, a few miles up Route 22 in New Lebanon, N.Y. Russo can barely get through a sentence without committing a verbal atrocity, but his knowledge of sports is encyclopedic and his style is energetic and engaging.

This is Fund’s:

Albert Einstein was dyslexic, and his lectures in both English and German were said to be full of malapropisms and gaffes. Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, a host at sports radio station WFAN in New York, is famous for his synaptic misfirings, but his depth of sports knowledge is encyclopedic and he holds an audience with style and panache.

Indeed, Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate.com, who has compiled the definitive collection of verbal presidential flubs he calls “Bushisms,” says Mr. Bush’s verbal difficulties appear to represent “some kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia that does not indicate a lack of mental capacity per se. Bush also compensates with his nonverbal acumen.” Voltaire long ago observed that common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.

Evidently, Jake Weisberg of Slate is worthy of being quoted as someone with ideas, but a little Connecticut-based blogger is not. In my original Tweedledumb posting, I credited Fund with quoting Voltaire on the MSNBC talk show Scarborough Country. Hey, I wasn’t clever enough to think it up myself, so I thought I would give credit where credit is due. Apparently, that isn’t the way Fund operates.

I am posting a comment on Fund’s article on the OpinionJournal.com website and am attempting to find his email address to apprise him of the situation. I will keep you updated on what happens. Click here to see if my comment made it past OpinionJournal.com’s editors.

Update: It’s 4:30 p.m. and 2 1/2 hours since I sent my comment to OpinionJournal.com. It has not been posted, but neither have any others during that time. Has the comment section on Fund’s article been shut down until his editors investigate the matter?

8:30 p.m. and we still have no change from 4:30.

9:15 p.m. and Fund has posted a comment elsewhere on my blog. I must say I am confused by it, but am reserving judgment. What do you think? Here it is:

Mr. Cowgill,

“What’s Going On Here?” is a perfectly reasonable question for you to ask. I too looked for your e-mail and couldn’t find it, so I am hoping you check this comment box on a personal basis.

You have a good reason to think you should have been cited for your contribution to the debate. I plead mea culpa, and I also must tell you the column was edited down from 1600 words to some 1300 words aince I wrote far longer than my normal length. I was traveling most of Sunday and did not check the edits closely. I cannot say I would have made an adjustment, but I can assure you proper citation was made. I can guess the reason might be that other players had actual quotes used and I used a paraphrase.

I appreciate your comment, and can assure you nothing done was intentional. I wish I had paid closer attention and I take responsibility for that.

From: Terry D. Cowgill [mailto:thenews@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:59 PM
To: Fund, John
Subject: RE: Blog Comment: “About the Writer”

Dear Mr Fund,

Thank you again for your prompt response to my query regarding your column and my “contribution to the debate.”

What we would like to see is some acknowledgment in a subsequent column or online editor’s note that proper attribution was not given to Terry Cowgill’s blog “What’s Going On Here?”

An early reply is requested.

Sincerely,

Terry Cowgill

From : Fund, John
Sent : Tuesday, August 22, 2006 5:00 PM
To : “Terry D. Cowgill”

Subject : RE: Blog Comment: “About the Writer”

I will pass that request onto the editors. I am taking off from the
column next week and the week after that is Labor Day. So it would be in
the immediate future. Again I regret and apologize for not catching the
omission. I am ultimately responsible.