Would I get penalized if I created a couple pages on my blog that aggregate content from other sites and blogs word for word? I would still provide the source and add my own commentary.
Content syndication won't get you penalized if you do it properly. Aggregation may affect you if it's not done properly, you really haven't provided enough information for us to gauge whether what you're doing will be seen in poor light by Google.
You're talking about autoblog aren't you? like FastWebProducts said, the keyword is "properly", there are many news agregator that doing fine but there are also spammy autoblog that gets banned. Some gets banned at the domain level, some gets their account completely closed. Did you know that some autoblogs are so good they are even good enough for google news? that would be your holy grail