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Obama Stopped Using MLK's Oval Office Rug Quote After Notified in 2008 of 'Borrowed' Origin
Saturday, August 4, 2010 | Kristinn

Posted on 09/04/2010 10:50:00 AM PDT by kristinn

The news of Barack Obama's new Oval Office rug containing a favorite quote used by Obama that he attributed to Martin Luther King was taken from a sermon by 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker has taken an interesting twist with research by Freeper Enchante (and Hot Air)showing that in 2008 Obama stopped using the quote in stump speeches after his presidential campaign was informed its origin by Unitarian Rev. Matt Tittle:

In April, during the presidential primary season, I perked up from the usual din of campaign rhetoric when I heard then-candidate Barack Obama say (referring to Dr. Martin Luther King's words):

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

I perked up because over a year earlier, in January of 2007 on MLK weekend, I wrote and delivered a sermon titled, Keepers of the Dream, in which I researched the origin of that very phrase, which Dr. King did use often, but which was not original to him.

Unitarian Universalists have long known that the original author of "the arc of the moral universe" was nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker. The problem was that very few people knew the published origin of the phrase. Indeed, if you search the internet, you will find more attributions to Dr. King and uses by Barack Obama, than Theodore Parker.

SNIP

Parker's actual quote was this:

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.
Theodore Parker, "Of Justice and Conscience," in Ten Sermons of Religion, (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Company,1853).

Fast forward to April 2008, when I heard Barack Obama attribute the quote to Dr. King...I immediately emailed the Obama Campaign the actual citation in the interest of accuracy. Just a point of information.

I have no way of knowing if the Obama Campaign ever attended to my email. I'd like to think so. What I do know is that I cannot find an instance of Barack Obama using "the arc of the moral universe" after April 2008....until the evening of November 4th in his victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago, when he said (referring to the historic election):

Its the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

Maybe the Obama Campaign did get that email! They changed the arc of the moral universe to the arc of history and bent it toward hope instead of justice.

NPR interviewed a King scholar who said he's not aware of any instance where King acknowledged the quote as being borrowed from Parker.

Also of note is that a contemporary of Parker's, Abraham Lincoln, also borrowed from Parker. Lincoln's "of the people, by the people, for the people" also featured on Obama's Oval Office rug originated with Parker.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: audacityofadope; audiacityoftaupe; axelrod; blametherug; carpetgate; chicago; chicagogang; civilrights; communism; democrats; education; harvard; harvardlaw; harvardnoveritas; harvardplagiarist; highereducation; history; kenyabelieveit; lincoln; martinlutherking; martinlutherkingjr; nohonesty; nointegrity; notruth; noveritas; obama; obamanation; obozo; plagiarism; quotereparations; socialists; theodoreparker; whitehouse
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To: kristinn

good thread, thanks for the ping!

when will someone ask Obama at a press conference why he can’t do elementary research on his quotations?

oh, wait, he’d need to actually hold a press conference and then we’d need someone in the servile WH press corpse to ask the question

ain’t gonna happen


21 posted on 09/04/2010 11:49:19 AM PDT by Enchante ("The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." -- George Orwell --)
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To: dusttoyou
In a legal “copyright’ sense no violation, but as to plagiarism, that is a differnet story.

Every pearl of wisdom ever uttered by a human being probably originated from the Scriptures.

I don't consider throwing out old antiquated sayings without attribution to be plagiarism.

At some point they simply become Maxims.

22 posted on 09/04/2010 11:49:58 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: kristinn
Obama is the biological and ideological issue of 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus/street revolutionary rabble. It would not be plagiarism if they had been truthful that they now control the MSM, entertainment, education, much of government; to wit "The arc of the moral universe is indeed long but we can bend it for the benefit of just us."

Example: the apolitical will likely never hear this story though a google News search reveals some MSM mention -- including the Las Vegas Review-Journal! Warning! Warning! Stop thinking about this story you'll get sued . . . .

23 posted on 09/04/2010 11:56:09 AM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: P-Marlowe
Oh contrair, I say politicians use stolen phrases to gain an advantage and pretend intellect and if there ever is an honest politician they would give credit where due.

Also doubting your blanket “scriptures” claim, maybe some, but “ever uttered”, Jeez.

24 posted on 09/04/2010 11:57:56 AM PDT by dusttoyou (Let the other side get all wee-wee'd up, Remember come November)
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To: kristinn
OK, here's the story on the Teddy Roosevelt quote. Apparently it is not wrong, just taken out of context.

The second mistake is a Teddy Roosevelt quote taken completely out of context. President Obama had the Oval Office renovated. Good for him. But there is a controversy. Naturally. It concerns a quote on the rug by Teddy Roosevelt: “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally on the welfare of all of us.” Over at the Huffington Post, the quote is considered an endorsement of socialism. But Susan Shelley at America Wants To Know said the quote is taken out of context. Great detective work by a great thinking American. We know the speech today as the The Square Deal speech. Readers may decide for themselves: Don Surber has posted the transcript of the entire speech, which ends with this: The death-knell of the Republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

25 posted on 09/04/2010 11:59:16 AM PDT by Eva
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To: kristinn

Dumbazz


26 posted on 09/04/2010 12:00:09 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (demonicRATS= Obama's Mosque, taxes, painful death. Is this what you want?)
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To: AAABEST

I didn’t even know Value City Furniture sold rugs like that one.


27 posted on 09/04/2010 12:05:09 PM PDT by Salamander (And I think I need some rest but sleeping don't come very easy in a straight white vest.)
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To: kristinn

The only type of justice referred to in a Biblical context is one of eternal justice, not justice in an earthly context. There are many bad things that happen in this world that are never “justiced.”


28 posted on 09/04/2010 12:21:53 PM PDT by pnh102 (Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
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To: Eva

bfl


29 posted on 09/04/2010 12:27:36 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
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To: kristinn

If Obama wanted a quote from a black preacher for the carpet, it would have been much safer to have quoted Jeremiah Wright—Wright’s not likely to have plagiarized from a 19th-century white guy.


30 posted on 09/04/2010 1:00:35 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: All
A sidebar re: Theodore Parker... If you're a fan of real Tiffany stained glass, and if you're ever in the Boston area, visit the Theodore Parker Church in West Roxbury. The windows are spectacular.


31 posted on 09/04/2010 1:24:08 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (Obama promised a gold mine, but will give us the shaft.)
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To: Carley

He stole a speech from a CARTOON for God’s sakes!!!

and no one complained.

Didja see the political cartoon and Obama’s words lined up side by side???

Didja see the video where he had to start his “quote” over, to get it right ???

Very very interesting moment from early 2008 ...


32 posted on 09/04/2010 2:06:10 PM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Or Anyone who can answer this: Now whenever Obama leaves the W.H. for Chicago (or wherever they move at the end of his reign), is he planning to take that Rug with him? (I can’t imagine another Pres. on the face of this Earth who would want to look at it day after day. Can Obama do that? If so, he’d better damn well pay for it!


33 posted on 09/04/2010 4:25:37 PM PDT by Patsygirl
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To: Eva

Teddy R. was something of a “progressive” for his day but certainly did not believe in the socialist-communist redistributionist schemes of the Obamanation

ridiculous to tear that TR quotation out of its legitimate historical context and make TR out to be a supporter of Obama’s schemes


34 posted on 09/04/2010 4:38:56 PM PDT by Enchante ("The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." -- George Orwell --)
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additional:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2583129/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2583251/posts


35 posted on 09/04/2010 4:53:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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To: kristinn

“Carpet-gate”


36 posted on 09/04/2010 4:59:45 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (posting handle made more sense, back before CNN became obama's shoe-shine stand...)
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