Departing aide expects more assertive Obama in second term

[No Elephants]

Departing aide expects more assertive Obama in second term

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/18/us-usa-obama-deparle-idUSBRE90G19R20130118

Very interesting article, IMO.

Often, I will try to get the essence of an article into the OP without doing too much violence to the DU2 rule of 4 paragraphs. But, so many topics are covered in this article that I can't do that.

[Enthusiast]

1. More assertive makes me nervous.

I'm concerned about what we will be more assertive about.

I didn't know about the four paragraph rule. I don't know much.

[No Elephants]

2. it was supposed to avoid copyright violation.

Between you and me, it was a silly rule.

Some stories are only from one to five paragraphs long, so four paragraphs of those stories would not be 'fair use,' as defined in copyright law.

A percentage of the total story would have made more sense. If there were some attachment to four paragraphs, four paragraphs could have been the cap on the allowable amount of copying, but it would have been an arbitrary one.

Then again, the Right Haven case probably put copyright claims against DU to rest.

A lot of news stories online begin a new paragraph with every sentence these days, so copying and pasting only four paragraphs is a tough standard if the story is at all long.