A great post on Huffington Post entitled: "The Wolfson Plagiarism Attack Is Ridiculous"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-wolfson-plagiarism-at_b_87209.html

I'd just like to point out that I love Barack Obama and he is awsome and there is nothing that he can do that is wrong, because he is Barack Obama.

This is a pretty laughable line of attack coming from the Clinton campaign. It's sampled for nearly every other Democratic campaign, and most clearly from Senator Obama's. Pathetic.

P.S. When are you guys going to work out the kinks in the comment system? I'm tired of logging in multiple times just to post a comment.

One more point, it's not plagarism if Patrick encouraged him to use the line.

Jesus Christ is this what Hillary's campaign is reduced to? What a joke.

I'm looking forward to the statement from the Clinton campaign in which they point out that when she said she was "fired up and ready to go", and "yes we can" that she should have attributed those remarks to Obama, since he said them first in the campaign.

Fair is fair, people.

That being said, the Obama campaign underestimated the attention this would get. Score one for the Clinton attack machine.

And can the Clinton campaign guarantee that everything Clinton has said in her speeches (which, according to her, don't mean much anyway) was entirely original? Hello? Howard Wolfson? Are you there?

I'm confused. How is this different from using a speechwriter?

the issue is not that obama didn't write the speech. most politicians use speech-writers. the issue is that some of the phrasing was already used in a speech two years earlier by someone who had given consent. seems like a pretty lame issue.

hillary doesn't write her own speeches, does she? how come no one in the obama camp or in the TPM articles mentioned that?

liam. Stop the sexist Mrs. Bill Clinton meme.

So the question really is this: Will the media incorporate this perspective into its coverage of this manufactured fracas or will it just say, Clinton charged, Obama responded, what will this do to the horse race?

Honestly, which one do you think CNN will choose? I think its obvious. Unlike many, I don't think (with the exception of FOX) that there's a strong MSM political bias, except toward the facile and lazy.

Considering just last week several economists (not Clinton team) found that he had plagierized Hillary's economic plan....saying if he was their student they would give him an F and expel him....sounds like a pattern is forming....

Isn't the real point, that the speech was in response to an attack from Clinton/McCain? If he can insert a response from another speech that perfectly addresses the attacks that have been lobbed at him, then that shows that the original attack is nothing but empty and cynical.

It's just another tactic out of the sleazy campaign handbook. When you don't like what your opponent is saying, attack the messenger instead of the message by claiming that they're long on platitudes and short on substance. That wasn't true when they said it about Patrick. It wasn't true when they said it about JFK, and it isn't true when they say it about Obama.

If Clinton and McCain are going to trot out the same vacuous attacks, then why should Obama waste his time reinventing the wheel when his friend, Patrick, has already demonstrated what a silly charge it really is?

It's a speech, not a dissertation for godsake. In persuasive speaking, and most especially in political speeches, people use common themes and catchphrases with no attribution necessary.

Moreover, I've never heard a single candidate attribute his or her speech to the person who actually wrote it--the speechwriter.

Bringing up the word "plagiarism" in this context is really unforgivable.

Obama should not have apologized, although I do agree that he probably should have given credit to Duval--not because it was wrong to use Duval's words with permission, but because he shouldn't give a desperate Clinton campaign any talking points to trump up into a ridiculous manufactured controversy.

I swore that I would support the Democratic nominee no matter what, but I am close to the end of my rope with Clinton. From her campaign's shocking marginalization of Democratic voters (latte liberals, "proud African Americans," Democrats in red states, caucus-going activists) to the idiotic attacks on Obama like this one (and who can forget the kindergarten essay flap?)....things she and her campaign have done directly....I'm getting close to the point at which I cannot support her if she goes on to win the nomination.

Really, when I think of all the time I spent in the 90s explaining to people why Bill Clinton's actions did not, in fact, constitute perjury and/or an impeachable offense, I am sorry that I spent time defending him, because they're no better than the people who accused Bill.

From ABC's Jake Tapper:

In a conference call just now the Clinton campaign would not guarantee that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has never used someone else's rhetoric without crediting them.

I asked Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass, if they could assure the public that neither Clinton nor McGovern has ever done what Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, did when he used the rhetoric of Gov. Deval Patrick without footnoting him.

They would not.

In fact, Wolfson seemed to say it wouldn't be as big a deal if it were discovered that Clinton had "lifted" such language.

"Sen. Clinton is not running on the strength of her rhetoric," Wolfson said.

Hmmmm.

Let's see. It's plagiarism only when Obama does it.

Unintentionally hilarious.

I'm now starting to wonder if the internal polls don't show a bigger Obama lead than what we're getting publicly....this sure was a great tactic on the part of the Clinton campaign to occupy the political media so that they wouldn't focus on...the actual election.

Yes! Oh when oh when will the media start holding him accountable. Nowadays, you need to subscribe to Factcheck.org or go straight to Hillary's website for her factcheck section to see how many of Obama's plans copied hers only 3 months later. He sees which plans look good and on the fly he pirates them. That's the kind of candidate he is, someone who will suddenly promise this and that, such as granting licenses to illegal aliens, just to win that week's primaries. That's just bad politics; he himself doesn't have any thought out plans.

Clinton is doing what candidates do when they are behind, attack. The point is to pull the leader down to you, not raise you up, which has already failed. What Obama supporters should be doing is to maintain the civility that he tries to show as the face of his candidacy. This will make losing Clinton supporters more likely, not less, to support him in the final election in November. We can't have anyone staying home out of spite, and giving McCain an advantage, if not the election.

I keep trying to think that HRC is above this kind of nonsense. I am an Obama supporter, but not a Hillary hater. Episodes like this and the non-story "pimped out" business make me think that she fired the wrong campaign staffers.

I mean, seriously, does anyone think that this is plagiarism? She is a smart woman with a tremendous grasp of the details of the pertinent issues in this campaign, and this is what we are talking about?

The question is pretty simple in my mind. Their policies are essentially the same. The main differences are a) he would win in the general, b) he has motivated a new generation of Democrats, and brought them to the voting booths, c) he communicates with large audiences better than anyone I have every seen (too young for Kennedy/Roosevelt/Lincoln, and I try to forget Reagan) and, most importantly, d) his last name is not Bush of Clinton. It is time to move on.

This is a non-story.

Yes it is understood that politicians, comedians, etc., use others' words but those words are the product of paid writers and in themselves are supposed to be original.

So your argument is that even though Obama used the words with permission, with the full approval of someone he worked with regularly on these sorts of thing, and even though every candidate uses the words of their speechwriters without attribution, the problematic aspect of this example is that Patrick wasn't being paid for those words. What a laughable argument.

Hillary wouldn't hesitate to stoop to any level necessary to hurt Obama. If this sort of thing is the best she can come up with, that's good news for Obama. It gives me more and more confidence that he's a good choice to be the Democratic nominee.

From Desk of

Mark Poison Penn

Breaking news. Stop the presses.

We have discovered that when Senator Obama told his kindergarten teacher that he wanted to become president of the United States some day, he failed to attribute those words to many other children who said those exact same words long before the very ambitious young Obama claimed them as his own.

We are doing further research on how remarkably similar some of his other Kindergarten utterances were to words that were once said by some of the Our Gang children.

You know what I find most disgusting about Kurtz's commentary on this issue, as well as the issue of Obama's backing out of his pledge on public financing?

That there is exactly ZERO acknowledgment in either case that there is something that Obama has done wrong. The ONLY thing the man has to say is to criticize the Clinton campaign for criticizing Obama.

Tell me please, Mr Kurtz, is it an entirely right thing that Obama seems to backing out of his pledge on public financing? Don't you think that if in fact it's OK, you might at least make some stab at trying to excuse what appears to be a flip flop?

And if it's just peachy-keen for Obama to use someone else's words without attribution -- clearly deceiving his audience as to their origin, by acting as if they were his own -- don't you think you are obliged to make out that argument?

Well, I should think that if you weren't a hack, you'd see the problem.

But you are, so you won't.

It's astonishing to me that the very same people who criticize and attack and ridicule Hillary for using cliches that Obama uses are now saying, "What's the big deal?" about Obama using a paragraph from another person's speech.

Those who say it isn't plagiarism because he didn't use the EXACT SAME WORDS apparently never wrote a high school term paper.

Plagiarism, as I'm sure any decent English teacher will explain, is not just about copying the words of another person. In that instance, you surround the sentence(s) with quotation marks. However, even if you change a few words, no longer requiring quotation marks, copying the specific idea of another person -- as Obama did, including the same internal quotations -- requires you to attribute the source.

The possible exception is when quoting something that is so commonly known that attribution is unnecessary (i.e., "We hold these truths to be self-evident...")

But Obama quoting the Constitution, MLK, FDR, et cetera is not the criticism here. It is his use of those particular quotes to make the EXACT SAME point, with almost the EXACT SAME words, that Patrick did.

He did not say, "As my good friend Gov. Patrick has said, words have meaning." That would have been perfectly acceptable.

But then, that might have called into question whether every single word Obama utters is trademarked by him and completely original, as he (or at least his followers) would have us believe.

A Huffpo post points to a April 2007 noting the similarities in message and oratory between Patrick and Obama. This was at the time of Patrick's speech, which Obama attended.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/16/patrick_obama_campaigns_share_language_of_hope/?page=1

Also, there is much debate about Kennedy's famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you..."
The Kennedy library in fact addresses it.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Derivation+of+Ask+not+what+your+country.htm

It notes that Van Wyck Brooks' New England: Indian Summer (1940) contains remarks made by the Mayor of Haverhill, Massachusetts at the funeral of John Greenleaf Whittier in which is the following: "Here may we be reminded that man is most honored, not by that which a city may do for him, but by that which he has done for the city."

The point of course is that even familiar words can be adapted to a specific time and place, framed in context that enriches them, and gives them unique meaning and power in the moment.

these 2 men are friends, and have been for 10 years. Obama was attacked by the Clintons in virtually the same way that Patrick was attacked by his opponent during his race. the 2 men talked about it, and Obama decided that Patrick's defense was the best route. he used it.

anyone who can derive "plagiarism" from this situation an unthinking troll, and exactly the kind of person the Clinton campaign wants to exploit less than 24 hours before the voting begins.

I depends on what the meaning of plagiarism is.

cheating and dishonesty is wrong unless Obama does it. Very cute.

From NPR's the Plank today:

Stumping in New Hampshire last December, Obama said:

"But you know in the end, don’t vote your fears. I’m stealing this line from my buddy (Massachusetts Gov.) Deval Patrick who stole a whole bunch of lines from me when he ran for the governorship, but it’s the right one, don’t vote your fears, vote your aspirations. Vote what you believe."

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/02/18/obama-s-quot-plagiarism-quot.aspx

Yeah, it might do a little short-term damage -- which is what The Clintons are best at. But soon there will be a YouTube video showing all the borrowed phrases in Hillary's speeches. I've already seen a few on the news; no doubt there'll be more. (Not that I think anything's wrong with such "sampling" on the stump -- just that her making a big deal about it will come back to haunt her.)

I'm glad Obama finally admitted that he should have given Patrick credit - which is more than most of his fans can do. Only I wonder whether he's made the concession because it became an issue, or whether he knows he did the wrong thing. Because this isn't an isolated example.

As to whether the words are his own or he's merely using other people's words to create a certain affect in his audience. When people make an idea their own they will put it into their own words, to reflect their own sincere and unique feelings and convictions. That is how they make it their own. But that isn't what Obama did. He used the same words and the same examples as Patrick. He was using words for their proven affect on an audience, which Patrick had already demonstrated, and not because he had thought very deeply about it and was able to offer any examples or words of his own.

I don't think he's completely dishonest or disingenous. I just think he's a politican -- a fact that seems completely lost on the screaming fans (including the media).

Do I agree with the majority of his political positions? Sure. Do I think that he says many things that are true and right? Sure. Do I think that he is pure light and goodness? No. Do I think he has all the answers to all our problems? No.

Obama is a politician. And what I've seen of politicans, in both parties, is that they are deeply flawed. Yes, I admire some more than others, but if the Democrats have taught us anything since November 2006, it's that even those with whom we more often agree are capable of disappointing us with their tendency toward political expediency and even cowardice. I voted a straight Democratic ticket in 2006, and I've been disappointed ever since.

And I believe even the great Obama has shown these characteristics at times (i.e., "borrowing" someone else's speech because it is convenient, and voting to fund a war he so strongly opposes). Yes, I like a lot of what he has to say, but that doesn't mean, despite what his supporters seem to think -- despite what he seems to think of himself -- that he somehow transcends politics and partisanship. He doesn't.

Disagree with what, exactly?

Are Deval Patrick and Barack Obama the same person?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSVsUvqb_Q

c'mon Josh - it's not about the plagiarism, it's about the lifting of an entire campaign strategy that was used for Deval Patrick - of course, the people of MA bought into it the first time, and then when Obama cam around sellin the same oil, they took a pass and gave Clinton a 15 point win! Obama isn't the ONE - he's just another politician.