Mentally unbalanced that is.

Elephant + Donkey = Obama!

No thanks! I think I will stick to my blue donkey! I never really liked red elephants! LOL!!!

I like this one better:

Blue Donkey + Hillary Clinton = United and authentic Blue Democratic Party that will win over purple and red!

Blue= Calm and peaceful

Red= Angry and mean

Purple = Confused and Unloyal

It is fundamentally impossible to plagiarize a cliche. Where's the beef is a cliche. It has entered popular culture and is therefore not plagiarizable. No possible.

Another cliche is "all fired up and ready to go." I have been hearing that since I was a little girl.

I agree that "where's the beef" has become a political cliche.

But isn't it also a political cliche for a candidate who has been accused of being "all talk" to point out that words can be very powerful? Hell, it had occurred to me that the attacks on Obama were ridiculous because political oratory is powerful. I don't think that's an original observation.

But since you disagree, I look forward to seeing Hillary Clinton's concession speech tomorrow after the Wisconsin primary. I expect that she will be providing to the press a transcript of her speech, carefully documenting which sentences were written by each of her speechwriters and volunteers, which rhetorical flourishes were suggested by her husband, which well-known literary quotes she plucked from books...

And which lines she ripped off from Barack Obama.

What's that you say? Hillary won't be supplying a cross-indexed, footnoted transcript with these citations?

Hmmm...

And "words matter" is not a cliche?

I hate arguing with you, as we agree on most issues, but I think you are taking this plagiarism issue a little too far.

Unless I am horribly mistaken, I think your tune and tone regarding Obama are going to change dramatically in the next 3 weeks.

So far my predictions have been pretty good.

(and they would have been perfect have Clinton not got negative prior to New Hampshire).

Hillary's camp is in full panic. She is not an original thinker. She's a wonk, and a good one. But to dust up about plagiarism from a friend and supporter is full on desperation. Bye, Hillary.

your observation that you can't plagiarize a cliche is correct, just as is the observation that you can't plagiarize "common knowledge." English 101.

However, political speeches are not research papers. Politicians in stump speeches do not give citations to their speechwriters.

I'm sure the Midol Squad will jump all over you for calling Hillary a douchebag. Because ladies douche, therefore calling her a douchebag is sexist.

So I wanted to write in and preempt some of that by supporting your observation, and informing the ladies that --

Sometimes a douchebag is just a douchebag, without regard to gender.

Oops, I didn't include a citation to Sigmund Freud for that. Plagiarism!!!

At the very best, it is intellectually dishonest. The worst interpretation is that it is plagiarism. I am not sure that the worst interpretation is not the one that applies here. They are friends, so of course Patrick is covering his ass. However, I will say this: God help the friend of mine who ever plagiarizes from me. Unless Obama had Patrick's advance permission to use those specific words, he was being very careless indeed. Even if he did, he acted improperly by not attributing for his audience the words that he said to Patrick. The closeness of the words Obama pilfered to those Patrick used before means that the statements cannot even be excused as a paraphrase.

There is nothing dirty or negative about pointing out the truth. Since when did telling the truth become dirty?

Fetboy, I suggest that you go back and read all all to the wikipedia article that I linked to on plagiarism. Plagiarism doesn't mean he stole from Patrick. If Patrick objected, he could sue for copyright infringement -- a legal issue. Plagiarism is not a legal issue. It is an ethical issue. Plagiarism means that Obama misled his listeners about the words being his.

Now had Patrick never given those words in a speech of his own and had instead reserved them for Obama to use in a speech -- that is to say acted as a speechwriter for Obama -- then there would be no problem. As it now stands, even if Axelrod wrote both speeches, it remains the same problem. Obama cannot even claim not to be unaware that the words were previously used in the speech that Patrick gave because he was there when Patrick gave it.

Obama is an educated man. He knows what plagiarism is. He is skirting the issue. The word "riff" changes nothing.

Barack Obama is "skirting" the issue?

Sexist!

You write:

"Unless Obama had Patrick's advance permission to use those specific words, he was being very careless indeed."

The New York Times writes:

"In a telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Patrick said that he and Mr. Obama first talked about the attacks from their respective rivals last summer, when Mrs. Clinton was raising questions about Mr. Obama’s experience, and that they discussed them again last week.

Both men had anticipated that Mr. Obama’s rhetorical strength would provide a point of criticism. Mr. Patrick said he told Mr. Obama that he should respond to the criticism, and he shared language from his campaign with Mr. Obama’s speechwriters."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/us/politics/18video.html?ref=politics

to educate people who are too lazy to read the link I provided. The simple fact is that there are people posting here who do not understand what plagiarism is. Joe Biden plagiarized in a speech (mentioned in the link) and that is one reason I had reservations about him.

I am a writer and a former English instructor. Plagiarism is something I despise on principal. I have always despised it and I have flunked people for it. This has absolutely nothing to do with me being a Hillary supporter.

Here's my favorite video of Hillary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_WIqjj0WVA

If Barack Obama claps and/or points during tomorrow night's victory speech in the Wisconsin primary, will he have to cite to Hillary for having clapped and pointed first?

Clap clap. Point point.