Team Clinton Hopes To Steal One In Wisconsin
Locked in a virtual dead heat with Hillary Clinton a day before the Wisconsin primary , Barack Obama found himself trying to play down reports he borrowed lines from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in a speech he gave at a Democratic dinner in Wisconsin Saturday, as reported by the New York Times, when the Illinois senator used almost identical words spoken by Patrick in 2006, during his campaign for governor.
Seizing on an opportunity to undercut Obama’s credibility, Howard Wolfson, Clinton campaign's communications director in an interview with the Politico accused their rival of outright plagiarism, saying the Illinois senator is ``running on the strength of his rhetoric… and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”
Obama’s team was quick to accuse the New York senator of some plagiarism of her own, such as in Davenport, Iowa when she used ``fired up and ready to go"; and on other occasion, chanted Obama’s signature rallying cry: ``Yes we can’’
Despite Gov Patrick issuing a statement that both he and Obama shared the same ideas, in an effort to diminish the firestorm, the suggestion of borrowing ideas from another candidate is evoking memories of Sen Joe Biden’s (D-Del) presidential meltdown in 1987, when he used the same words of British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, without attributing him during a debate in Iowa. The plagiarism charge derailed the Delaware senator’s presidential hopes, forcing him to drop out of the race.
So how damaging will the borrowing of words be to Obama? We’ll find out in the next day or so, if this story has any legs, or gets dismissed as an embarrassing, but hardly fatal blunder.
But in the meantime, Richard Parker, Senior Fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University reminded me that Abraham Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is from the preface to John Wycliffe's Bible, the first (14th century) translation of the Bible into English. ``Lincoln, in using the phrase, Parker wrote through an email, may have felt many in the audience would understand that he was quoting Wycliffe.’’
Todd S. Frobish, Associate Professor from the Department of Performing and Fine Arts at Fayetteville State University, and author of ``Crises in American Oratory: A History of Rhetorical Inadequacy’’ observed that plagiarism or the borrowing of ideas, without proper attribution, takes place in the political arena more than we think. ``It is only when our politicians repeat the rare or unique phrase made by another, such as Obama's recent faux pas, or Joe Biden's much more heinous acts of plagiarism in 1987, that it becomes news’’ Frobish wrote.
Personally, I was a little surprised Team Clinton felt the need to issue the plagiarism charges with such violence as they did on Monday; you would think the news media and the ruthless bloggers would have questioned Obama’s credibility for her; but by raising the plagiarism issue themselves, all they did was draw attention to the belief that Clinton is resorting to spiteful tactics, bordering on desperation, as they see the campaign slipping away from them.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
Seizing on an opportunity to undercut Obama’s credibility, Howard Wolfson, Clinton campaign's communications director in an interview with the Politico accused their rival of outright plagiarism, saying the Illinois senator is ``running on the strength of his rhetoric… and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”
Obama’s team was quick to accuse the New York senator of some plagiarism of her own, such as in Davenport, Iowa when she used ``fired up and ready to go"; and on other occasion, chanted Obama’s signature rallying cry: ``Yes we can’’
Despite Gov Patrick issuing a statement that both he and Obama shared the same ideas, in an effort to diminish the firestorm, the suggestion of borrowing ideas from another candidate is evoking memories of Sen Joe Biden’s (D-Del) presidential meltdown in 1987, when he used the same words of British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, without attributing him during a debate in Iowa. The plagiarism charge derailed the Delaware senator’s presidential hopes, forcing him to drop out of the race.
So how damaging will the borrowing of words be to Obama? We’ll find out in the next day or so, if this story has any legs, or gets dismissed as an embarrassing, but hardly fatal blunder.
But in the meantime, Richard Parker, Senior Fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University reminded me that Abraham Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is from the preface to John Wycliffe's Bible, the first (14th century) translation of the Bible into English. ``Lincoln, in using the phrase, Parker wrote through an email, may have felt many in the audience would understand that he was quoting Wycliffe.’’
Todd S. Frobish, Associate Professor from the Department of Performing and Fine Arts at Fayetteville State University, and author of ``Crises in American Oratory: A History of Rhetorical Inadequacy’’ observed that plagiarism or the borrowing of ideas, without proper attribution, takes place in the political arena more than we think. ``It is only when our politicians repeat the rare or unique phrase made by another, such as Obama's recent faux pas, or Joe Biden's much more heinous acts of plagiarism in 1987, that it becomes news’’ Frobish wrote.
Personally, I was a little surprised Team Clinton felt the need to issue the plagiarism charges with such violence as they did on Monday; you would think the news media and the ruthless bloggers would have questioned Obama’s credibility for her; but by raising the plagiarism issue themselves, all they did was draw attention to the belief that Clinton is resorting to spiteful tactics, bordering on desperation, as they see the campaign slipping away from them.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
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