<p>What do you all think of the assertions by the Clinton campaign that Senator Obama has lifted words from Governor Patrick without attribution?</p>
<p>At what point is political speech owned by its author and when does it enter the public realm? Are there themes that are so universal as to be impossible to plagiarize?</p>
<p>The person who they claim Obama stole from was pleased with the speech and did not think it was plagerism…that he didn’t need to be even recognized…</p>
<p>to be honest, I have used those very words myself…those particular words, about I have a dream, etc, are not so obscure and rarified to be “stolen”,- the words "just words’, well, isn’t that a pretty common thought and idea among many? </p>
<p>and McCain uses Obama lines, who cares!!!</p>
<p>too sad that the Clintons are resorting to this…sad indeed…</p>
<p>I agree with CGM that it’s sad that the Clintons are stooping so low. Since Gov. Patrick, who appears to be Obama’s friend, has no problem with what Obama has done, the Clintons’ assertions also seem desperate and asinine.</p>
<p>To whatever extent Deval Patrick “owns” his rhetoric, it’s for him to decide what uses are inappropriate. Since he’s endorsed Obama and okayed the shared imagery, there’s no reason for any third party to get exercised about it.</p>
<p>If I were Obama, I’d be concerned that Hillary’s new stump speech includes the word “Change”. I mean after all, Obama used it first. :eek:</p>
<p>Can you imagine Obama’s reaction when Bill Clinton referred to his wife as the candidate, or “agent of change”?? … :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Non-issue if his friend doesn’t care, and he doesn’t. Hard to claim “just words” as your own, as it’s a pretty common phrase. I thought it was hilarious that McCain co-opted “Fired up and ready to go!”</p>
<p>And to add to what Hanna said, not only did he endorse it, he suggested it.</p>
<p>Talk about a non-issue!!!</p>
<p>As long as he doesn’t start using, “My friends…100-year War.”</p>
<p>A speech isn’t like a published manuscript where you can have footnotes and citations. Politicians echo each others platitudes all the time. There is no standard for attribution there. I’m sure nothing is original from Patrick either.
As for real plagiarism: Biden and MLK were known to have actually stolen from others in their written work. Didn’t seem to bother many people.<br>
As for “it’s not plagiarism if the person plagiarized doesn’t care”: I think that is wrong. If you pass someone else’s work off as your own when you could have given them credit, then you are a plagiarist.</p>
<p>I remember the outrage on this board when a 19 year old from Harvard stole few passages from a novel and made some money. She was crucified.</p>
<p>Different times different yardsticks.</p>
<p>It’s a nice memory; what does it have to do with this?</p>
<p>go figure…</p>
<p>Deval Patrick is the reason Clinton won Massachusetts, even though Obama had the support of our two Senators and Governor.</p>
<p>People in MA believed the Patrick rhetoric, and they weren’t going to fall for it again.</p>
<p>Patrick has been an awful Governor, just as Obama would make an awful President.</p>
<p>Yes we can WHAT?</p>
<p>How many speechwriters did Ronald Reagan have? Or for that matter, any other President?</p>
<p>This isn’t plagiarism at all-McCain started using “Fired up and Ready to Go”;Hillary uses the change word all the time. Everyone laughs and Obama doesn’t accuse them of stealing his lines or his thoughts Obama is saying that the words of Martin Luther King, Kennedy and Roosevelt are great and inspiring words-not the words of Devaul Patrick (who isn’t that hot a speaker or that inspiring I will admit)</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Just Words. Just not Obama’s.](<a href=“http://youtube.com/watch?v=8M6x1H08aFc]YouTube”>http://youtube.com/watch?v=8M6x1H08aFc)</p>
<p>SAME SPEECH.</p>
<p>Using a catch phrase is alot different then ripping off a speech, which is exactly what Obama did.</p>
<p>McCain used “fired up and ready to go” with the intention that people would recognize it. (kind of mocking Obama)</p>
<p>I am tired of Obama’s empty rhetoric. He claims bipartisanship, yet he was ranked the most liberal senator. He says he will change Washington, but never says how. Obama (and Hillary) voted against scrapping the bridge to nowhere; I thought he said he was different from all the other Politicians?</p>
<p>Deval Patrick wasn’t the messiah and neither is Obama…</p>
<p>Simba–it is utterly different. Obama borrowed a rhetorical device at the behest of a former user of it. The key words of the speech were, of course, the list of famous and easily recognizable quotations, and it is their power he is highlighting, after the his friend suggested he do so. This is totally unlike the Harvard undergrad who stole scores of passages from another book and passed them off as her own, to the chagrin of the actual author.</p>
<p>Clinton herself borrowed the ‘fired up ready to go’ line in this speech I think in Iowa:
[YouTube</a> - Hillary Uses Obama Catch-Phrase “Fired up and Ready to Go”](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweVOO-fhug]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweVOO-fhug)</p>
<p>I think it’s gonna be a little harder for Obama to get poet, June Jordan to give the okiedokie to the frequent use of her phrase “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for…”, since she’s dead.</p>
<p>Hey I like the man. Can’t vote in the Democratic Primary in Texas and if he is the nominee, I’m not voting for him… but he seems a truly decent person. I think it’s sloppy work on the part of his staff who should be making sure he gives Hillary’s people nothing on which to get traction.</p>
<p>Everyone’s copying from everyone else. Everyone is borrowing lines from Obama who borrowed them from someone else… who probably borrowed it from someone else. I read Obama got the “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” from Maria Shriver in her endorsement speech… who apparently got it from June Jordan. Everyone is also borrowing the whole change message… Romney started using it months ago and Clinton started soon after Iowa… and Obama was not the first one to “change” in every sentence. “Yes, we can” and “Fired up and ready to go” are also not an originally Obama either.</p>
<p>I doubt any of the candidates have come up with many, if any, of the memorable phrases of the campaign.</p>