(Hat tip: Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review Corner.)

Stepping outside my normal purview of Canadian politics for a bit, it looks very much like Hilary Clinton’s people are getting desperate. Apparently they’re willing to say anything — and I mean anything — in an attempt to make Barack Obama look bad. The story comes from The Politico and concerns Clinton’s communications director, Howard Wolfson:

Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters.

On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”

“When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader,” said Wolfson.

Obama closely echoed a passage from a speech that Deval Patrick, now the Massachusetts governor, used at a campaign rally when he was running for that office in 2006.

Okay. Here’s what Mr. Patrick said at that rally:

“But her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is that all I have to offer is words — just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, [applause and cheers] that all men are created equal.’ [Sustained applause and cheers.] 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!”

And here’s what Mr. Obama said on Saturday:

“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! [Applause.] ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”

Can we get something clear here — specifically, the definition of plagiarizing?

plagiarizing (v.) to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source

Now here’s the thing: both Obama and Patrick were arguing that good speeches matter in politics, a point that many political speechwriters would agree with. So that’s not exactly an original thought peculiar to either of them.

Futhermore, they buttress their point by using quotations from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy (used by Mr. Patrick), and Martin Luther King Jr. (used by Mr. Obama). The words are so well-known in this political context that no oral attribution would be considered necessary. (After all, it’s not like either candidate is trying to submit an academic thesis to the voter.)

So why make the charge? Simple: the Clinton campaign is trying to set up the meme that Obama is more about style than actual substance, and this thread of plagiarism feeds directly into that meme. The problem with this tactic is that it utilizes an inexact definition of plagiarism that Mrs. Clinton, as a lawyer, would know better than to use — and in doing so, the Clinton campaign reveals a level of desperation usually indicative of a campaign in trouble.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 19:43 and is filed under Politics, Yankees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.