Clinton’s “Plagiarism” Charge Falls Flat

February 18, 2008 7:08 pm. 4 Comments | 2008 Election

When I saw the Clinton campaign claiming that Sen. Obama had committed “plagiarism” for echoing a few words from another politician’s speech, I thought “are they serious”? This is the sort of useless charge that seems to once again show the fingerprints of an inept Mark Penn operation. By this standard, every time a politician said “ask not”, he or she would have to provide a stackful of footnotes attributing the phrase to President Kennedy. For a change, the nightly news broadcasts on ABC and NBC noted how trite this accusation is (nobody tell the ODS-infected pro-Clinton sites, it’s the outrage du jour).

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4 Responses to “Clinton’s “Plagiarism” Charge Falls Flat”

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  • Quaker in a Basement
    February 18, 2008 at 7:42 pm

    Wait a minute. Obama follows Patrick’s lead in quoting some famous people?

    So if I quote, say, Mark Twain or H.L. Mencken or William Shatner, anyone else who does the same is plagiarizing me?

    That’s just dumb.

  • schmikka
    February 18, 2008 at 9:01 pm

    I agree 100%. This is a joke. Speeches are not the same as scholarship. This is another lame attempt at – dare I say it – swiftboating – going after someone on their strength to neutralize it. Not gonna work. And for the Clintons, who are world class co-opters, to level it is, well ridiculous. She also took the “this is the cause of my life” line from John Edwards, and if I had a quarter for every time I heard her use her good friend Bill’s line “if you work hard and play by the rules”… Sorry. This has me a little steamed the night before my home state’s primary.

  • schmikka
    February 18, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    Here – I guess Gail Collins said this much better a month ago.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10collins.html

  • duros62
    February 19, 2008 at 6:20 pm

    Are we 15? Is this English Lit 102? WTF? Does it count as plagiarism if you speak a famous quote but it isn’t necessarily in the body of a speech?

    How does this all work? And why is Clinton’s campaign so focused on lying about Obama all of a sudden? They said he was running attack ads in Wisconsin, but he isn’t.

    I live in Rhode Island. I’ve heard a Barak ad on the (Lite rock) radio at least 5 times today. Haven’t heard any for Clinton. Michelle is speaking at the Comm. College tomorrow afternoon. No idea where Hillary is. Still in Texas?

    Hell, even McCain showed up last week.

    Hill needs to chill.

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