Barack Obama And Why It Matters That He Plagiarized A Speech (At Least One That We Know Of)

As a child psychologist and psychoanalyst, I have worked with children and adolescents of all ages who come to me with every imaginable kind of problem (and some that are, quite frankly, unimaginable). Usually, the teenagers I see are there because they've gotten themselves into trouble, both at home and at school. The trouble could be drugs, it could be overly aggressive behavior, it could be truancy, it could be lack of respect shown to authority figures and, not uncommonly, it could be because he or she has gotten thrown out of school for plagiarism.

Any child over the age of, say, 8, knows it is not only morally wrong to sign your name to something you did not write but that it is a punishable act. Such punishment, when the child who commits the plagiarism is in high school or college, often includes expulsion from school. With kids ever more internet savvy (i.e., having access to the myriads of articles and papers written on any given subject by some supposedly obscure author) and school administrators and teachers trying to ensure that the teen does not "slip one past them," schools are increasingly using programs designed to detect whether, in fact, a piece of written work handed in by a student was actually written by that student and does not match, in phraseology or any other patterns that such programs detect, written work by someone other than the student. We, as a society, value honesty and integrity and one of the surest mark of a lack of both is a person's willingness to claim someone else's words (or work) as their own.

And this is why it matters that Barack Obama is now furiously trying to suggest that it's "no big deal" that he plagiarized his friend's, Deval Patrick's, speech. He's even claiming that Mr. Patrick told him to use the speech. Perhaps Mr. Patrick did. Perhaps Mr. Patrick told him to use the speech and never told him to say it was written by Mr. Patrick and not by Mr. Obama. It doesn't matter, actually, what Mr. Patrick said or did not say to Mr. Obama. What matters is that Mr. Obama passed this speech off as his own, adding only his by now customary flourishes of tone and inflection. That the man who has presented himself to this country as the man of integrity and change turns out to be a fraud — and that is what we call people who pretend that someone else's words are their own — must be a profound disappointment for his supporters, if they can be honest enough with themselves to admit it.

However, what's even more disheartening and heartbreaking is this: Mr. Obama, in his historic bid for the Presidency, represented an ideal with whom children from broken homes, of mixed racial origins, of no great means, of inner turmoil who seek refuge in drugs, could all look up to and strive to be. In one fell swoop of his unwritten-with pen, he has dashed the hope that here stood a man who pulled himself together and got it together.

Here stood a man who towered above others in his quest for decency and integrity. Here stood a man who played it straight and said it as he saw it. But Mr. Obama is not that man. This man, as it turns out, is just another guy who seems to have bought into his own hype about how wonderful he is even as he tries to convince us he is not simply a liar. Worse still, he has been shown to be a liar while he has paradoxically been running his entire campaign based virtually exclusively on his stellar character, a character he has claimed that is so different from all those Washington insiders he has sought to set himself apart from.

Listening to the pundits of Slate Magazine claim that this charge of plagiarism "won't stick" with the voters because "with Obama, there's no pattern of lying," only adds insult to injury. I'm sure that even Slate Magazine remembers that Mr. Obama's so-called autobiography, Dreams From My Father, was discovered not to be entirely factual, as well. It took Mr. Obama some time, as I recall, to finally admit that, yes, some of the characters were not real but were, rather, "composite" characters. In other words, they were fiction. Which means that, in other words, he lied about it and never told anyone that his autobiography was not only not entirely written by him (check with his ghost writer), but that his so-called life was not exactly what he claimed it was.

Children know that not telling the truth, either by omission or commission, is the definition of a lie. Perhaps there is more of a pattern to Mr. Obama's distortions and omissions than even these two rather egregious examples point to. As a clinician, I have found that if one lies about one or two things here or there and then makes light of those lies, and acts as if the ones who find this offensive are the ones making mountains out of molehills, you can almost take it to the bank that a deeper pattern of not telling it like it is exists. It's only a matter of time before it becomes more fully exposed. So, it's suffer the children yet again. Yet again, a grownup who might actually have served as the inspiration he so adamantly claims he is, turns out to be another scammer who, when caught in the scam, does what every child does: he says, "it's no big deal." And then he has the audacity to cast aspersions on the ones who caught him. Even the children I see don't do that.

So, here's the lesson these kids will learn if the media, as they seem likely to do, go too easy on Mr. Obama for this crime: The trick is in getting away with it. That's the lesson they will learn, when the sad thing is they could have learned so much more from him. Mr. Obama's dismissal of this fraudulent act and his other as "no big deals" undermines what parents and teachers have been trying to teach their kids about honesty and integrity, sometimes against very strong odds. They thought maybe in Mr. Obama they had a helping hand. They were wrong.

What they have instead is a man who, while seeking the highest office in the land, shrugs off a "crime" as no big deal, seeks to blame those who uncovered it, and arrogantly thinks he should not be held to the same standard to which we hold school children. I only hope for the sake of the children watching, that he is wrong.

As Mr. Obama using Mr. Patrick's speech says, "it's only words." Yes, Mr. Obama, words do matter, especially when they're lies.

Dr. Sylvia Welsh is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst. She is on the faculty of the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute and the faculty of the NYU School Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Welsh treats children, adolescents and adults, families and couples.

Read more news and blog posts on accusations of plagiarism against Obama

Comments

[realistxxx]

Tempest in a teapot, but hey the Clinton campaign and their supporters are desperate.

The "Clinton Night of the Long Knives" hasn't even begun... this is just the appetizer.

It's amazing how tearing down one of the most dynamic and inspirational leaders of my party is all they can do.

Way to build unity and expand the Dem Party's tent.

Politics as usual, disgusting.

[shangti]

Ah yes, It is ok to call the Clinton the Gestapo and Hitlery but if we even try to with Saint Obama, we will be declare anti-semite. BTW, have you ever notice how is rallies are like the nazis rally. :)

[horizonr]

You write:

"Children know that not telling the truth, either by omission or commission, is the definition of a lie."

In that spirit, thank you for the following two non-disclosures: Not only have you, as of the end of 2007, donated $2,800 to Hillary Clinton's campaign (to the exclusion of all other candidates). In October 2007, you signed on as a member of the New York Women for Hillary Council.

Important for your readers to know where you're coming from, don't you think?

With that bit of housekeeping aside, thanks for your concern that Barack Obama's candidacy and, indeed, his entire life of public service now have been invalidated by a 15-second riff.

Yes -- although you incessantly refer to it as a "speech," it was a 15-second rhetorical flourish.

I daresay that more than 15 seconds of Hillary Clinton's campaign statements have been derivative.

(1) After Obama had been promoting his "Walk for Change" events for TWO MONTHS, Clinton rolled out "Ready for Change" as her "new" slogan -- the first time she had used "Change" in her campaign.

Also, in speeches -- and after Obama had been using these phrases for weeks, sometimes months...

(2) Clinton ripped off Obama's "Turn the page."

(3) Clinton cribbed "Fired up! Ready to go!"

(3) Clinton chanted "Yes, we will" -- an obvious reference to Obama's "Yes, we can."

Your $2,800 donation to Clinton is at

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=welsh&fname=sylvia&search=Search

Your membership on the New York Women for Hillary Council is at

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/pdf/20071017_nywomen.pdf

[JackW]

I donated nothing to either candidate, but I feel the same way as the writer. He passed off the words as his own. If Clinton had used words form someone like JFK, FDR etc, all hell would have broken loose among Obama fanatics, including most who write for Huff Post, or report for MSNBC/NBC.
I have also heard the same speech from Obama that he used last fall, about the republican whispering he was supporting Obama and Obama says "why are we whispering?". I don't care who the candidate is, you should never use the same speech! It shows laziness.
BTW, I've been proud of this country all of my life, and always will be!

[vegasobserver]

The title of Hillary's first book, "It Takes a Village", was also plagiarized from a well-known African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child."

[okeydokey]

Hillary did give attribution to that African proverb both in the book and in interviews about the book.

[LAJonathan]

I think I'm falling in love with you.

[horizonr]

Do tell.

[bauersox]

So what? Most of the contributors to HuffPo are unabashedly pro-Obama. What's your point?

[bluestatelib]

Clinton has been using rhetorical flourishes reminiscent of Obama lately. Here's a recent example from her speech at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Richmond, VA, Feb. 9:

"I am ready to make your case, because your voices are the change we seek," she said, echoing a similar line from Obama's Super Tuesday speech in Chicago: "We are the ones we've been waiting for, we are the change we seek."

One way or another, this cheap political tactic will backfire on her. Just this morning I thought that considering how dreadful it would be to live under a McCain presidency I would hold my nose and vote for Hillary if she wont the Democratic nomination. Just this morning! Now this?

Why am I still continually shocked by how low the Clintons will go to recapture the White House? I won't vote for McCain, but I can not support Hillary. I refuse to reward her despicable campaign tactics with my vote! Sad. Shamelessly sad.

[starboymikey]

Why am I still continually shocked by how low the Clintons will go to recapture the White House? I won't vote for McCain, but I can not support Hillary. I refuse to reward her despicable campaign tactics with my vote! Sad. Shamelessly sad.
__________­__________­__________­__________­______

C'mon, you feel that way now, and so do I. But you'll vote for her if you have to. I know I will, just as I did twice with her husband. I held my nose and voted for him, because it was the best the Democrats could come up with. I will do the same for Hillary if I have to, because the devil himself would be better than four more years of Bushism.

[bluestatelib]

This blog stinks of false outrage. Do Hillary's supporters really want to travel down this road? Consider:

Hillary Ghostwriter Controversy re It Takes A Village

Clinton has been criticized for not giving credit to a ghostwriter in connection with It Takes a Village. The majority of the book was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman. When the book was first announced in April 1995, The New York Times reported publisher Simon & Schuster as saying "The book will actually be written by Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Ms. Feinman will conduct a series of interviews with Mrs. Clinton, who will help edit the resulting text."

Feinman spent seven months on the project and was paid $120,000 for her work. Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. During her promotional tour for the book, Clinton said, "I actually wrote the book ... I had to write my own book because I want to stand by every word." Clinton stated that Feinman assisted in interviews and did some editorial drafting of "connecting paragraphs", while Clinton herself wrote the final manuscript in longhand.

This led Feinman to complain at the time to Capitol Style magazine over the lack of acknowledgment. In 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that "New York literary circles are buzzing with vitriol over Sen. Clinton's refusal, so far, to share credit with any writer who helps on her book." Feinman agrees that Clinton was involved with the project, but also states that, "Like any first lady, Mrs. Clinton had an extremely hectic schedule and writing a book without assistance would have been logistically impossible­." Feinman reiterates that her only objection to the whole process was the lack of any acknowledgment. A 2005 Georgetown University web page bio for Barbara Feinman Todd states that It Takes a Village was one of "several high-profile books" that she has "assisted, as editor, writer and researcher­."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village

[PortiaElizabeth]

Obama also collaborated with a ghost writer on his books. Check it out with the publisher.

[antv]

Sooooo...d­id anyone see hillary's "yes, we will" chant in ohio?

[Roose]

I can't wait for this primary from hell to be over. Instead of Barack taking on McCave, he has to deal with Billary's slime machine. So he borrowed a line from his friend.

Big F----g deal!

[kelly]

what about obama's slime machine?! u obama supporters are like the sheep. you'll make excuses for anybody.

[gallonjug]

Hillary people, you know you don't really care about this. Child Psychologist person, you don't care about it either. You care passionately about your candidate. Which is good, in fact it's great. But you are truly losing your way in this Rove-like wilderness if you've convinced yourselves you are morally outraged that a campaigner who speaks all day every day for months on end repeated something an advisor to his campaign once said. The fact is, you share political philosophies with Obama--if you're a Democrat and you like Hillary, you do. It's just a fact. Maybe this Dr of Philosophy could spend time examining what is really behind the recent vitriol coming from some professional middle-aged women toward a candidate who's only fault is that he's winning.

[GDavis]

Two fellas running on the same platform of a different politics using the same verbage to answer identical attacks of being all words no action...a­nd anyone is surprised by this how?

Good grief...if this is the best the Clintons have, they are in deep trouble.

Course it might have something to do with creating a media suckered kerfuffle as cover for the Clintons to pull every trick in the book to steal the nomination­...how many stories have broken since this *plagiarism* mess about delegates and the Clintons?

How transparently desperate can one campaign get?

[Mikey5099]

Don't you actually have to write your own speeches in order to 'plagiarize'? When was the last time ANY politician wrote their own speeches?? Move on, this is frivolous and detracts from the real issues...

[Bagger]

You said that "this must be profound disappointment for his supporters­." Well actually when I heard it I thought what a great response to Hillary's attack of Obama. Then when I heard Duval used it as well I said now that's teammwork. Get over it. Hillary can only win by belittling her opponent. I will not vote for her if she is the nominee. That's the disappointment I have after watching this unfold.

[TheOC4Obama]

The Clinton campaign is really getting desperate if this is one of the main reasons why Obama should not become President of the U.S. It is purely a bogus charge made out of desperation! The media are playing into the Clinton stategy by spinning this non-issue. Let's get back to talking about the Iraq War, the economy,and immigration reforma.

[vegasobserver]

The big difference between Biden lifting lines from a Neil Kinnock speech and Obama using lines from a Deval Patrick speech, is that Biden was actually lifting a narrative -- a story -- and presenting it as his own life experience, in the same words... while Obama is just borrowing political rhetoric. Politicians borrow each others' political rhetoric all the time -- look at how Hillary started saying "Yes We Can" after Obama did....

Hillary has lifted more political rhetoric from more different politicians than anyone else I know. She actually hasn't had an original political or policy idea in her life, which I find much more disturbing than Obama taking some lines from Deval Patrick, his friend.

This is a huge mountain being made out of a little pile of sand, and is being twisted out of all proportion by Hillary's desperate supporters, for naked political advantage. That's what is truly disgusting here.

[dora rice]

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY ADULT LIFE I AM REALLY
PROUD OF MY COUNTRY...­....LOLOLO­LOL

SLOWLY BUT SHURELY THE PEAL OF THE MOLD COMES OFF.......­..BETWEEN THE MAN WHO SPEAKS FROM THE HEART...HA­HAHAH....A­ND HER BEING FOR THE FIRST TIME PROUD OF AMERICA...­...EXPOSED­..

[vegasobserver]

What did you just write? It makes no sense at all.

You'd also better go back and learn how to spell words like "surely" (it's not "shurely").

[PhyloSeFiser]

This is what a real lie is Sylvia:

From Wikipedia:

Clinton has been criticized for not giving credit to a ghostwriter in connection with It Takes a Village. The majority of the book was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman.[8­] When the book was first announced in April 1995, The New York Times reported publisher Simon & Schuster as saying "The book will actually be written by Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Ms. Feinman will conduct a series of interviews with Mrs. Clinton, who will help edit the resulting text."[9]
Feinman spent seven months on the project and was paid $120,000 for her work.[10] Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. Clinton's acknowledgment section began: "It takes a village to bring a book into the world, as everyone who has written one knows. Many people have helped me to complete this one, sometimes without even knowing it. They are so numerous that I will not even attempt to acknowledge them individually, for fear that I might leave one out."[11] During her promotional tour for the book, Clinton said, "I actually wrote the book ... I had to write my own book because I want to stand by every word."[2] Clinton stated that Feinman assisted in interviews and did some editorial drafting of "connecting paragraphs", while Clinton herself wrote the final manuscript in longhand.[­2]
This led Feinman to complain at the time to Capitol Style magazine over the lack of acknowledg­ement.[12] In 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that "New York literary circles are buzzing with vitriol over Sen. Clinton's refusal, so far, to share credit with any writer who helps on her book."

She's actually out there telling people that she ACTUALLY wrote it. And why? because she wants to stand by every word! The unmitigated nerve of that woman!

Why isn't the media talking about this at all. Where's the balance?

[AuntSally]

I don't want the media to talk about it. It's minutia. Of course she had a ghost writer. Are there thinking minds that believe otherwise?

I want the media to talk about the people we kill.

The soldiers we send to be killed.

And maimed.

And psychologically scarred.

The kids to whom we hand the bill.

The environment we're destroying.

The genocide we support.

The people we incarcerate w/out recourse or charge.

The moron in the White House.

Who cares who's f8cking idea it was to turn a particular phrase 'just that way'?

[TonalCrow]

I suppose you realize that most political speeches are not written by the politicians who deliver them, but instead by their *speechwriters*? Under your reasoning, it is a "lie", indeed a "crime" for a politician to deliver such a speech without explicitly crediting his or her speechwriter.

And you do realize that Mr. Patrick explicitly urged Mr. Obama to use the very lines you accuse him of "fraud" -- indeed of *being" a "fraud" -- for using?

I hear that the GOP's got a new opening in its Swiftboating Corps. You should consider applying.

[sarainitaly]

There is much difference between imitating a man and counterfeiting him.
~Benjamin Franklin

Definitions of Plagiarism on the Web:

stealing someone else's ideas and presenting them as your own.

The false presentation of someone else's writing as one's own.

is using another person's ideas or creative work without giving credit to that person

The willful act of presenting another person's work as one's own.

taking, using, and passing off as your own, the ideas or words of another.

[auntiecairo]

First how many kids read Slate or other political blogs (I doubt very many) - but after all of the misdeeds in Bill Clinton's administration how can you seriously even bring the subject of lying up? Obama has laid out his past misdeeds in his books - not alot of hiding going on. There's a big difference between using a couple of sentences from someone's else's speech than using the entire speech. If these mythical parents you are describing are discussing campaign fodder then I'd say their children are probably much more devastated to learn about our current President lying to get us into a war that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. People please get a perspective!