February 18th, 2008
Is Obama’s Plagiarism the Change You Can Believe In?
It has now come out that Obama’s rousing speech at the Wisconsin Democratic Party — you know, the “words don’t matter?” speech I just wrote about — is plagiarized from a speech by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. Here is Deval Patrick’s original speech from 2006:
Now here is Obama on Saturday night:
It is profoundly ironic that in his chance to rebut critics who say that his speeches are emotionalistic fluff — just words — he doesn’t even use his own words!
Obama is basing his whole campaign on his superior ability to inspire people, to get them excited about “change you can believe in.” His ideas aren’t really very different than Hillary Clinton’s, and in fact, people have pointed out that a lot of “his” ideas come from legislation that Hillary Clinton proposed long before Obama ever came on the scene.
I wouldn’t bother to point this out about any other candidate, but since Obama’s whole candidacy is based only on the importance of getting you inspired, this is directly relevant. My point is this: Obama wants to inspire you to believe in him — he says policies don’t matter if you aren’t feeling inspired! — and yet he relies on stolen material to inspire you. I wonder how inspired you’ll feel when he runs out of new or borrowed material and goes into re-runs. I bet then you’ll wish you had given more thought to the important issues.
P.S., If you ask me, Deval Patrick’s is the more inspiring version. Maybe Obama supporters should draft him as their candidate instead!
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Clinton, Obama, Politics and Government |
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February 19th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Wow, Phillip - I had no idea you were so politically motivated. It is going to take some time to look at all these posts!
As for the topic of Obama’s speeches, I find it odd that you would want to pick a bone with borrowed words in speeches. Did you know that Obama and the other guy were friends? People with similar goals usually run into the same arguments from their opposition and quite commonly use the same words to defend their original position.
We could argue how close the first must be from the second to make our own arbitrary definintion of plagiarism. Each side (I really do hate the bipartisam political dichotomy we have - I think we need more parties) would argue how ideas and bits of speeches have been recycled over the years.
I don’t have a problem with the speech. I also didn’t have a problem with the Apple-rip-off commercial from YouTube with Clinton.
I got this email telling me about your new post, but will I get one if you reply to this comment?
February 27th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hi, Neil. You won’t get an email about my replies to comments, but if you subscribe to comments, you can see comments as someone posts them. I often don’t respond to comments, but I do read them and think about them, and all the other readers get to see them too. I always hope that readers will use the comments as a way to interact with each other, but I don’t draw that kind of a readership the way some other blogs do. By the way, I do get an email saying that you left a comment.
About Obama’s speech (old news now), I do know that he and Deval Patrick are friends and that Patrick doesn’t take issue with Obama’s using his speech. As I say in the post, I wouldn’t take issue with it either except that the centerpiece of Obama’s candidacy is his ability to get people inspired and motivated with his speeches. Well, if his speeches aren’t even his own, what are people getting excited about? His good looks? Maybe we should vote for Anthony Robbins. Maybe he can awaken the giant within America!
If all the buzz about Obama were about anything other than his ability to get people excited, I wouldn’t have brought this up.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The only reason I’m currently an Obama supporter is because I agree with more of his stances on issues (as presented at ontheissues.org).
More of best of worst choices thing for me, but that is how politics usually play out in my life.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Hi Fellow Supporter of John McCain. On my blog, I’ve written recently about Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement of Alaska Govenor Sarah Palin for McCain-s V-P choice, new information from Texas about the race there, and finally about Barack Obama’s bizarre support of infanticide (in the case of so-called “live birth abortions”). If you’d ever like to use any of my material, please feel free to do so. I’d only ask you to cite my blog at: http://camp2008victorya.blogspot.com. If I can ever offer any assistance to help you get your pro-McCain message out, please let me know. Comments are always welcome. All the best to you and your blog visitors.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Hi There,
You sound very threatened by a great speech by someone who doesn’t care about what color your hair or skin is, but about trying to unite humanity and all life together and create a greater good. Are you still wanting “sides” and pushing other “less desireables” away so you can be a greedy, self absorbed ignoramous? Get over yourself and try actually living Jesus & Buddha messages about giving freely ALL of yourself to the world and stop being so selfish and ignorant.
John D. Brooks
March 8th, 2009 at 11:12 am
You know, Presidents have staff to write their speeches for them; if there is plagiarism going on here, Obama himself almost certainly wasn’t aware of it.