Monday, February 18, 2008

Can we COPY IT? YES WE CAN!

Hillary Clinton's team has accused Democrat opponent Barack Obama of plagiarism, referring to his speeches in which he has said: "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?” The source of the original statements, they claim, belong to Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, from his 2006 campaign.

Senator Barack Obama adapted one of his signature arguments — that his oratory amounts to more than inspiring words — from speeches given by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts during his 2006 campaign.

At a Democratic Party dinner Saturday in Wisconsin, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, responded to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has criticized him for delivering smooth speeches but says they do not amount to solutions to the nation’s problems, by ticking through a string of historic references.


I'm actually not sure, personally, if Obama DID lift the key elements of Patrick's 2006 speech. Personally, it all sounds like the same old rhetoric of the left to me at this point. I've heard Hillary Clinton make speeches that, to me, sounded like the same things I've heard other Democrats make in the past as well, including things that I'm certain her husband said during his bid for and time as President.

What I DO know, however, is that there IS evidence that Obama takes things from other places, ideas from other people, and incorporates them into his own rhetoric in his bid for the White House, as is evidenced here:



Such are the curiosities of life during the campaign season...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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