Interesting watching the Jonah Lehrer kerfuffle play out from my perspective. 1st takeaway: journalism is dripping with schadenfreude.

Jonah Lehrer, a friend of the Dish, got caught recycling pieces of his own writing. Jack Shafer ponders the transgression:

In the early hours of l’affaire Lehrer, my instincts were telling me that Lehrer had transgressed, but I couldn’t figure out whether his offense was a felony, a misdemeanor or a violation of journalistic taboo. A variety of observers were calling what Lehrer did “self-plagiarism,” but in my mind plagiarism requires some act of thievery. You can’t steal money out of your own bank account, can you? You can’t commit adultery with your own spouse, right?

Shafer eventually concludes that Lehrer "cheated his new publishers by breaking the implied (or written) contract that he was producing original copy." Josh Levin sees all this as proof that Lehrer is running on empty: