The Miami Herald’s new columnist, Jackie Bueno Sousa, didn’t waste any time in letting readers know exactly where she stood politically. Let’s just say she is no Ana Menendez.
The following two sentences in her introduction column Monday proved she is further to the right than a Halliburton majority stockholder.
Jackie Bueno Sousa
“I believe … that history will redeem George W. Bush”
and
“I believe we’re entering a dangerous era of populism.”
But it was another sentence in her column that prompted a local blogger to question whether she is guilty of plagiarism.
I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Andy Diaz, one of two contributors who make up the new political blog Generation Miami, pointed out that this was the same sentence made during a memorable monologue in the movie Bull Durham.
The Lee Harvey Oswald line is identical to the line from Bull Durham. A lot of people believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, so the line by itself doesn’t prove a lot. But when you put the lines in context, you see a different picture. The cadence of the two paragraphs is practically the same, and so is their general subjects—the mixture of politics and sports, the complaint about the erosion of certain values in sport. Sousa switches baseball for football–yeah, that’s clever. There is no doubt that Sousa’s beliefs, or at least in the style in which she sought to convey them, were “inspired” by Crash Davis. And we know one belief in particular is either stolen from Bull Durham or the result of a major coincidence.
Here is the paragraph from Sousa’s column:
I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; that NFL play rules are beginning to coddle quarterbacks; and that all elected officials should be subject to term limits. I believe that man really did land on the moon; that history will redeem George W. Bush; that life begins after conception but before birth; and that nature will destroy us before we destroy it.
And here is the segment from the Bull Durham monologue:
I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe that there oughtta be a constitutional amendment outlawing astro-turf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography, opening your presents on Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
Regardless of whether she purposely lifted the line from the movie, subconsciously lifted it after watching the movie the previous evening or came up with the line as she was trying to assure her readers that she is no conspiracy theorist, the fact that she believes that history will redeem one of the most unpopular presidents in the history of the United States makes her as credible as a young Cuban lawyer who once told a courtoom that “history will absolve me.”
That’s what I believe anyway.
