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Just (borrowed) words Sunday, Feb 24, 2008 By David Sanders It was bound to happen at some point. Barack Obama, the newly anointed frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination, faced a real challenge in terms of a story that could have been potentially damaging to his campaign. Obama's struggles arose when members of a "rival Democratic campaign" began circulating what it considered were real examples of the Illinois senator ripping off speech material from other politicians ? mainly Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor and Obama supporter. During last weekend's Wisconsin Democratic Party gala, Obama responded to Hillary Clinton's frequent attack line. She claims that his campaign is nothing more than lofty speeches often lacking in substance. His response was both rhetorically eloquent and borrowed, "Don't tell me words don't matter! 'I have a dream.' Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Just words, just speeches!" Facing a similar criticism from his opponent nearly two years earlier, Patrick launched a similar rhetorical defense: "Her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all I have to offer is words. Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' -- just words. Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' -- just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country' -- just words. 'I have a dream' -- just words." The similarities are obvious, but there is a simple explanation. Obama responded that not only do he and Patrick share and swap ideas, but they also have relied on the services of a Democratic consultant, who now works for Obama and worked for Patrick in 2006. His campaign shot back, claiming that Clinton had borrowed material from Obama, although the examples weren't as compelling. The bottom line is that charges of plagiarism, and direct evidence showing it, are clearly serious matters, especially to Obama, whose epic rise has been clearly tied to what are broadly viewed as inspiring stump speeches. The story, which was both pushed and perpetuated by the Clinton campaign, was largely viewed as a petty political attack. Sen. Clinton's denial that her campaign had anything to do with getting the story into the press was deceitful -- in fact, it probably undercut the substance of the story to some degree. Apparently Democrats aren't bothered ? at least not in 2008. Twenty years earlier a man from Delaware faced a similar challenge. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden's 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was cut short because of plagiarism. His offense was that he lifted speech material from Neil Kinnock, the then-leader of Britain's Labor Party, and passed it off as his own. So where does this leave Democrats now? The evidence clearly shows that Obama used material that matched word-for-word a speech belonging to his friend and supporter. I'm not sure his defense works - not for the long-term. What if Hillary Clinton, the one-time frontrunner, had used large chunks of her husband's speeches and passed them off as her own? So far it appears that Obama is held to a different standard. He has gone through this process so far unscathed, in part because of the Clintons' ineptitude. Their attacks on him have been banal, in some instances, and down right unconscionable at times ? mainly Bill Clinton's less-than-subtle race baiting in South Carolina. Obama has survived for now, but a new week surely will bring new attacks and it looks like the Clintons are getting it together. ------- David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is a host of the Arkansas Education Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com. |
