In Answer to the Grub Street Plumber: Whose Writing is This?

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May 29, 2005

In Answer to the Grub Street Plumber: Whose Writing is This?

I was reading opinions posted on Chattanoogan.com, as I do, and I checked out J.C. Bowman's reply to Jeremy Goldsten's questions about balance in the "Tennessee Waltz" operation.

I've seen that name, J.C. Bowman, often in the Opinion section. I was struck by part of the message posted on 5/28/05 that read:

There is speculation, no facts simply guessing going on, that the FBI didn't set up this elaborate ruse to catch five current and former legislators taking a relatively small amount of money. There is more coming. As U.S. Attorney Jim Vines put it, "not today." He was asked if there would be any more arrests.

Many are convinced the only reason the arrests happened yesterday was because Chris Newton began to realize the game was up and withdrew HB37 from the House Wednesday afternoon.

I was struck by it because I had earlier read South End Grounds, a blog, and had come across a 5/27/05 post that went something like, in part:

The FBI didn't set up this elaborate ruse to catch five current and former legislators taking a relatively small amount of money. There is more coming. As U.S. Attorney Jim Vines put it, "not today." He was asked if there would be any more arrests.

Many are convinced the only reason the arrests happened yesterday was because Chris Newton began to realize the game was up and withdrew HB37 from the House Wednesday afternoon.

What does this mean? How much more of J.C. Bowman's opinion was authored by uncredited unknowns?

UPDATE 5/29/05 13:55: I found a strange parallel to this post after, as is the custom, sitting on it in draft mode (I sometimes call it "daft mode" since the occasional rant gets saved there but later deleted because it was written in an emotion-fueled setting). I wrote the above on Saturday night at about 8pm, but am only now going to publish. Grub Street's timestamp is 02:45 today, and I just saw it on Chattablogs.

So, do the two cases cited by these two blogs so close together indicate multiple instances of words being lifted or otherwise uncredited in publications?

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