If politics is sports, then Obama's rhetoric is like a filthy fastball that opposing hitters haven't managed to hit yet. (Jobarack Ochamberlain?) He keeps running it out there until someone connects off of him. Hittin' Hillary Clinton has choked up and grabbed a trusty bat off the rack: Words are cheap, actions speak louder than etc. etc.
And according to today's New York Times, the new spin in Barack's pitches ("Don't tell me words don't matter.") was borrowed from a -- I'm going to stretch this metaphor til it snaps -- secret pitching coach: Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts.
From the Times:
In a telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Patrick said that he and Mr. Obama first talked about the attacks from their respective rivals last summer, when Mrs. Clinton was raising questions about Mr. Obama's experience, and that they discussed them again last week.
Both men had anticipated that Mr. Obama's rhetorical strength would provide a point of criticism. Mr. Patrick said he told Mr. Obama that he should respond to the criticism, and he shared language from his campaign with Mr. Obama's speechwriters.Mr. Patrick said he did not believe Mr. Obama should give him credit.
Should Obama give Patrick credit? Hell no. Putting aside practical questions of flow in a speech -- imagine getting to the rousing climax of the rebuttal and having to pause to explain who Deval Patrick is, etc. etc. -- there are larger issues at play having to do with ownership of a speech. Speechwriters have become ubiquitous at the highest levels of contemporary politics, but while it's interesting to piece together how famous phrases or speeches developed a politician -- and certainly a president -- takes ownership of words no later than the instant when they pass his (or her) lips. (And well before that, in optimal circumstances.) Patrick is not an Obama speechwriter as such, but happily and willingly lent the words (which distinguishes him from, say, a pol lifting phrases with neither permission nor attribution -- more on that in a second).
The history and the debate is fascinating, and is covered in my forthcoming White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters.
There is another aspect to the Obama-Patrick story. As Politico's Mike Allen notes:
A rival campaign circulated a pair of YouTube links on Sunday that make the point [of similarity] vividly.
This anonymous "rival campaign" (I wonder whose it was -- Gravel maybe?), seeking to jolt the race and change its momentum, is less interested in connecting Obama with Patrick, I argue over at RobertEmmet, than with Joe Biden, circa 1988.
Read more news and blog posts on accusations of plagiarism against Obama
(Bill Clinton's phrasing was "build bridges to the future"... & Obama uses that metaphor, perhaps deliberately, to show that his connection to the future is truer than any Clinton's.)
Jeremy Larner
Just childish nit picking!
America has more pressing issues than who said what first!
Absolutely pathetic!
Apparently no one before Deval Patrick used those two words together before?
Ironic that Hillary (whose own name was purloined from a world-famous mountain climber without his permission) is attacking someone for plagiarism for two very common words. "Just words"
...or is she saying that he should have specifically stated what were the sources for "All men were created equal", "the only thing we need fear is fear itself", and "I have a dream"?
That's the point, isn't it. That words have power and that those words also convey important ideas..so much so that one doesn't need to tell people the sources.
"Just words" really.
But Hillary's speechwriters can't come up with something so powerful, I guess. Wait! Hillary doesn't use speechwriters (at least she never credits them if she does, but then neither did Bill).
I guess her turgid prose is apparently of her own creation.
I realize that desperation is oozing from the lips of your candidate and these type of quotes are foreign to her, but I think she should familiarize herself with the profound words of Thomas Jefferson and MLK Jr. they are available to all who wish to use them.
But it's not just the words that make for stirring oratory. It's the passion, the delivery, the sense the person talking the talk believes in it deeply.
So Patrick and Obama both share the Vision Thing. so both have to adjust to the muck of realpolitik, which ain't easy.
so what does this mean? Vote only for the politician who promises a long laundry list of programs, which are also unlikely to plop into place smoothly? Or go with someone who at least acknowledges, and longs to change, how bruised and broken our political system is? Who wants to snatch hope from the jaws of decades of lies, broken promises, greed and shallow charisma?
Bottom line: Obama should have credited Duval Patrick. But is he a rank plagarist who should lose votes over this? Puh-leeze.....
Senator Clinton does not have to take public financing because she never herself pledged to do so
Senator Clinton cannot be questioned about funding the war because she wasn't opposed to the war from the beginning
Senator Clinton can take money from lobbyists because she never claimed she wouldn't
etc... etc.. etc...
There's a new logic that we all must subscribe to. Please. Moving forward, only Barack Obama can be questioned, criticized, and "vetted". He's running on Change. People running on Change must be held to a higher standard. Those who are not, can do as they please.
Now, everybody: Clap. Clap. Point! Point!
Check it out here: http://thepage.time.com/obama-release-on-clintons-languge/
So the Clintonites on this thread have no argument after this. Like I wrote earlier, this is a non-story.
Whenever Hillary attacks Obama on something, it comes out that the Clintons have no credibility on the very thing they're kneecapping him with.
And as the link above shows, CAMP CLINTON has no credibility on the charge of "plagiarism". Let's see them worm their way out of this one.
Obama used the owrds of a friend, Deval Patrick, who has even used some of Obama's lines in his speeches. But the TIME Magazine link above shows that Hillary went farther than Barack, and actually ripped off the lines of her competitor.
Last time I checked, hipster, very few public speakers wrote their own speeches. Even so, very few can claim to have crafted and delivered the kinds of lines that resound through history... this "eternal sound bites of History." This pose that you are striking is a low form of poseur criticism. MLK Jr., for instance was a preacher, whose profession gave him one of the most "plagiarised" texts in world history: The Holy Bible. Even now, I can bet that most of you who are utilizing his "I have a dream" speech to attack Obama can not actually tell me what he said outside of "I have a dream." But you can hear his practiced oratory, the modulation of his speech, the timing, the majesty of an art that was once a REQUIREMENT to run for public office.
One of the deepest flaws in our modern culture is this two-faced demand for novelty, yet overwhelmingly chooses the safe and derivative. Obama is a man that practicing the endangered art of oratory and all you can say is, "try harder, tell me something I've never heard before." Last I heard, he wasn't offering change in that the world is going to be radically different so much as changed for the BETTER.
By the way, think of Bob Dylan aping Woody Guthrie on his early records or Keith Richard borrowing licks from Nuddy Warers and tell me that they are plagiarists. THat is all.
This candidate's background was inspiring. Growing up with a single mom, he lived in the rough part of town where not much was expected of poor black kids. But he found his way, got accepted into top-notch schools, got a law degree from Harvard, and devoted a great deal of time to charitable work.
His name is Deval Patrick, our state's first African American governor. He rode the wave of change to Beacon Hill in 2006, to much fanfare and adulation. But now he faces a stubborn state legislature, lack of consensus on his agenda, and was plagued early on by a series of scandals. If ever there was a parallel between what Obama will face when he becomes president, this is it. Read this article in today's Boston Globe to get some idea of his first full year in office:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/31/after_soaring_entry_a_mixed_first_year_for_patrick/?page=1
Quote:
"It has been a huge learning curve for everyone," said State Representative Corey Atkins, a Concord Democrat and one of the first lawmakers to endorse Patrick's candidacy. She remains optimistic about his potential. "He came from a rational world into an irrational world and he has to figure that out. He still has to learn to get along with the Legislature and the Legislature has to work with him."
Obama may go into the White House on the wings of angels, but he will be pulled quickly back to earth. Sorry, folks, but we don't have time for rookie mistakes - there's too much at stake this time around.