More Plagiarism from Michael Ryan

Re: "Then the race got kookier," from the January 16th addition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

We can add Kathryn Lopez, a columnist for the National Review, as another source that Michael Ryan plagiarizes.

Ms. Lopez deliberately misquoted Massachusetts senatorial candidate, Martha Coakley, to make it sound as if she was prejudiced against catholics.

Ms. Coakley was being interviewed by radio host, Ken Pittman. They were discussing a Massachusetts state law that provides emergency contraception for rape victims in emergency rooms. Because catholics are against birth control of any kind, this could pose a moral dilemma for them. Martha Coakley's opponent, Scott Brown, sponsored an amendment to this law that would have the state pay for transfers to hospitals where medical workers who don't oppose birth control would provide the treatment.

Ms. Lopez misquoted what Ms. Coakley said when discussing this issue. She wrote that Ms. Coakley said "The law says people are allowed to have that (referring to religious freedom). You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room." Then she made the leap that Ms. Coakley claimed that catholics shouldn't work in emergency rooms.

This is the part Ms. Lopez left out, according to Jamison Foser (www.mediamatters.org/blog/201001150015), "If you refuse to provide legal medical services to rape victims, you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room."

In Michael Ryan's column, he repeated the same misquotation and also claimed, as Ms. Lopez did, that Ms. Coakley saw catholics as unqualified to work in emergency rooms.

So unless, Mr. Ryan independently thought to deliberately misquote Ms. Coakley and to use the misquotation to smear her with being anti-catholic, than he is guilty of plagiarism.

Anybody out there think he thought of this smear independently?

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Today's editorial, "Obama's freshmen failure," was predictably unfair.

I think it's too early for history to judge whether Obama's first year was a failure or a success, and the whole idea of giving a letter grade to a president is a little silly. Nevertheless, most of the criticisms in this editorial are rehashed accounts of Mr. Ryan's hysterical opposition to political points of view he disagrees with.

I'm not going to discuss each and every one. Instead, I'd like to point out the most unfair criticism in this column. Mr. Ryan writes, "he (Obama) has failed to pass any major legislation, amazingly despite solid Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress."

There are two reasons for this and they have nothing to do with Obama.

1. Republican obstructionism
2. Conservative democrats who are also on the take from big corporations and oppose even minor reforms.

Considering the control big corporations have over Congress, it's amazing an reform beneficial to the people ever passes, but it looks likely at least some form of weak health care reform will pass soon.