RCJ Plagiarizes WSJ

Dakota War College calls it right: whoever's editing the Rapid City Journal must have been paying more attention the all the blog buzz about their new regime and not enough to citing their sources. In yesterday's editorial on the stalled farm bill [RCJ editorial board, "October Brings Thoughts of Pheasants, Farm Bill," Rapid City Journal, 2007.10.20], RCJ cuts and pastes text from a Wall Street Journal opinion piece [David Rogers, "Farm Bill Withers in the Absence of a Strongman," Wall Street Journal, 2007.10.05, retrieved from IATP Ag Observatory 2007.10.21].

RCJ properly gives credit for one line:

Even some of those Republicans say they miss Daschle’s power right now. “When Daschle walked in, it was like Gen. Patton. Everything sort of came together,” Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) told the Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers earlier this month. “There’s no Gen. Patton this time.” [RCJ]

But the rank cut-and-pastery occurs in the immediately preceding line:

But the Senate is usually a place where populist Midwest demands for strict subsidy limits run into cotton and rice interests allied with Southern Democrats and Republicans. [RCJ]

In the original Rogers text, the following line appears ten paragraphs below the Lucas quote:

But differences remain, and the Senate is historically an arena where populist Midwest demands for strict subsidy limits run into cotton and rice interests allied with Southern Democrats and Republicans. [WSJ]

Looks like the online thesaurus crashed after arena. Oops. Even synonymized, the line is Rogers's, and demands credit as such. Cite your sources, kids.

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Say, and while I'm thinking about it, I have a question for my readers -- fellow bloggers and pure readers alike: we bloggers cite each other like crazy. It would certainly be easy for us to slip and plagiarize one another as we hurry through this enjoyable hobby alongside our day jobs. I'm curious: what is the general consensus on the expected level of citation here in the blog world? Above, where I cite Dakota War College's post on the RCJ's plagiarism, is a hyperlink sufficient citation of my source, or should such references include an explicit author, title, date, and page [e.g.: Pat Powers, "Deja Vu in the RCJ: What Other Phrases Can We Find Duplicated?" South Dakota War College, 2007.10.20]?