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Rush Limbaugh answers my question about how President Obama, a law professor, could have responded to the Citizens United case the way he did.

Yesterday, at 8:42 a.m. CT, I wrote:

So, the Supreme Court came out with a big free-speech decision yesterday, and President Obama's response was that he needs "to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less."...

The President was a law professor ? technically, a "senior lecturer" at the University of Chicago Law School ? for 12 years. Why would a law professor oppose a Supreme Court decision on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the Court and honor our system of separation of powers?

And here's Rush Limbaugh, on yesterday's show (which begins at 11:00 CT):

Now, the Supreme Court came out with this big free speech decision yesterday. It's sweeping. It is huge. Did you hear Obama's response? Obama said that he needs to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing else, a forceful response. Now, I want to point out that Obama was a law professor, or technically a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago law school for 12 years. Now, why would a law professor oppose a Supreme Court decision on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the court and honor our system of separation of powers? Why? Of course it's easy. Because he doesn't like the Constitution. And this we know. He thinks the Constitution restrains him and restricts him for doing things to people. The Constitution spells out what the government may not do, and that's what he doesn't like.

IN THE COMMENTS:  El Pollo Real wrote:

So, are you peeved that he didn't mention you, curious about why he didn't, or flattered even though he didn't?

I said:

The similarity of the language ? especially "on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the court and honor our system of separation of powers" ? makes it unquestionably mine. He did this once before that I noticed, but I declined to post about it.

I'm happy that he or somebody who prepares material for him reads my blog, but certainly if you're going to quote me like that, you ought to say my name.

If you go to the link, you'll see that the very next paragraph begins: "Thomas Lifson writing about this in the AmericanThinker.com." Why didn't I get that? Lifson even got his URL said aloud.

He has used things from my blog a couple times and named me. That needs to be the standard form, certainly when a quote is used. I think there are other occasions when a topic is inspired by a blog post, and I think in at least some of those cases, the blogger whose idea is used ought to be credited by name.

It's quite possible that my material arrived chez Rush in email form without attribution, but all they'd have to do is put a distinctive phrase in Google and they would see if it's a quote so they could give credit.

I think perhaps Rush has text in front of him that he is intending to paraphrase -- as he started to do with my post -- and then for one reason or another he lapses into outright quoting. Maybe he's in a hurry or he can't, in real time, quite understand the text so he can't paraphrase it.

I don't think it's outrageous and deliberate presentation of my work as his. I just think I should get named.

Another thought is that maybe they're trying to protect me from the wrath of Madison, Wisconsin and law professors everywhere. They should email me if they have questions in that vein. In case you are wondering, Rush and his people have never corresponded with me about anything.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 23, 2010 (boomark / email).