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Is Clinton grasping for anything to hold her campaign afloat.
Hillary Clinton’s top advisers accused Barack Obama of plagiarizing in a speech he gave recently when he used lines that his friend Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had said in an earlier speech.
Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director pointed to a speech Obama delivered at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin Saturday that used lines from an address given last year by Governor Patrick.
Now what I understand as Plagiarism – is claiming or implying that you are the original author of material from someone else’s written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one’s own work without adequate acknowledgement.
Did Obama do that?? I think not.
The Associated press reported in January that Obama had borrowed ideas and speech points from Patrick, many times without attribution. Clinton’s campaign has posted video clips on YouTube to show the similarities in Obama’s and Governor Patrick’s speeches.
Obama told the Wisconsin audience after Clinton has been saying that Obama is all rhetoric and words. Obama responded by saying “Don’t tell me words don’t matter, I have a dream just words?? We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, Just words?? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, just words?? Just Speeches??”
His friend Governor Patrick, who had to similarly defend himself against attacks that he was all words and rhetoric, made by his GOP rival in his 2006 Governors bid, had used these quotes. In fact I believe these quotes have been used in scores of speeches and writings since they were originally spoken.
With a tight race ongoing in the next primary’s Clinton’s campaign is grasping at anything it can to diminish Obama’s popularity. Clinton is going negative criticizing Obama for refusing to debate her in the state before the primary and is criticizing Obama for backing away from a pledge to accept public funding if he is the Democratic nominee.
Obama has acknowledged trading ideas with Patrick, and Governor has said he has used lines he has gotten from Obama. Obama said he probably should have credited Patrick but the oversight didn’t indicate a pattern of deception.
As I watched Chris Matthews last night they showed clips of Hillary using quotes that Bill has used in the past. Inspirational quotes made by inspirational people are fair game if anything is in political speeches as long as you don’t say that you are the author.
Come on Hillary get your staff to focus on the issues that matter not whether Obama uses inspirational quotes from inspirational people, we all do. Get back to the issues that matter, like who would be best suited to defeat the GOP candidate in the fall, the economy, how do we stop the dismantling of our constitution by Bush / Cheney, the deficit, healthcare for all American’s, more ethics reform, chasing the military industrial complex out of the halls of congress, campaign finance reform, stopping American imperialism, important issues not superfluous accusations of issues that don’t matter anyway.
Candidates, News Media, Citizens, whether Obama used part of a friends speech to illustrate a point, or whether Hillary repeats Bills best quotes, is not an issue we need to focus on, how the candidates will lead the country is an issue, report on that if you dare.Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.
