Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Obama's speeches: Not plagiarism, but still less than honest

No doubt by now you've heard about allegations by the Clinton campaign that Obama has plagiarized parts of a recent speech by using the same words and intonation used by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Obama's response is that he and Gov. Patrick are friends and have discussed strategies, and that he used Gov. Patrick's lines with his tacit approval:
"I'm happy to give Deval credit, as I give credit to a lot people for spurring all kinds of ideas," he said. "But I think that it is fair to say that everything that we've been doing in generating excitement and the interest that people have in the election is based on the core belief in me that we need change in America."
Note: Those of you participating in the Obama Drinking Game should have taken one shot at this point. Please, pace yourself today!

Because Obama says he had discussed these words with Gov. Patrick, it does not seem to fit the definition of plagiarism. However, it does strike me as fairly dishonest and yes -- phony. He's selling us on the idea of change and new ideas while recycling someone else's campaign speech.

His charm is lost on me. As Hillary Clinton has said: "If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words."

5 comments:

Sara said...

As a friend just pointed out, could you imagine what would happen to hillary if she used some of a speech by bill?

unbelievable.

Sue J said...

Yup. Now quite bogartin' the vodka!

chizzy said...

Is this all that Hillary has? She is useless! She is riding on Bill's coat tails...she has not done anything for this country or the state of NY! She was the first lady People and that's it! I have watched several of their speeches and Hillary has stolen a few of Obama's ideas. For one, the money for every college student, Obama said that he wanted every college student to receive $4,000 per year and they had to work for it. Hillary, then says in one of her speeches, she wants the college students to receive $10,000 and they had to work for it. Hillary never once mentioned any money for college students until she heard Barack mention it. She is one to talk about a person using another person's words and trying to make them their own and not crediting the original person. She has no support politically in the House or Congress, nothing will get done if she is in office. Also, she will not be able to mend fences in the Middle East because the leaders of those countries, already do not respect women. When she cried on TV, I lost all respect for Hillary. I do not want a cry baby in my White House. Take your tears somewhere els. I want a strong leader that will not fold under the pressure in a small primary.

Sue J said...

Put down that double espresso Chizzy, you're officially cut off!

Anonymous said...

seriously, chizzy, chill.