Letters to the Editor
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Ha ha ha
And even the Clinton campaign won't deny outright that its candidate has ever used another politician's language. Asked about that in a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson said, "Sen. Clinton is not running on the strength of her rhetoric."
Translation: Both campaigns do it, but it's only bad if Obama does it.
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substance
When Bill Clinton was being accused of race-baiting, when the media hounded him and then cherry-picked his phrases, then hung them out to dry for examination as to their appropriateness given Obama's being black, I asked everybody I knew:
The question to ask is this: "Is Bill Clinton a racist? Do you think that he thinks that blacks are inferior to whites?" To me what mattered was that Bill Clinton was obviously not a racist. Nobody really thought so (although that was a few weeks ago, an eternity in political terms and in the new divisive Democratic paradigm. Things have gotten much nastier. At the time of that SC primary, everybody I asked acknowledged that Bill Clinton was of course not actually a racist.) I encouraged everyone I know to try like heck to ignore the media's bait.
So I ask everybody this: Does anyone doubt Obama's rhetorical strength? Is there anybody out there who honestly thinks that b/c he borrowed words that were obviously called for--content-wise--to combat the recent charges against him (that his rhetorical strength itself is somehow evidence of superficiality), his superior communication skills are somehow a sham? Does anybody think he's got a transmitter attached via wires to his back, getting messages from the pros?
The fact is that he's being attacked on the issue of his charisma and speaking ability. I'm not saying that's an unfair charge, or at least one that shouldn't be vetted, but it's obvious that he needed to respond. What better message than the notion that words matter? Obviously, sitting around with his friend, they must have talked about how that very "words" speech directly addressed the charges coming from Clinton that he is "all words, no action" or something along that line. They seem to be partners, and it is really no different than paying a speech writer.
Again, the substance of the charges against him called precisely for this kind of speech. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Plain Dealer last week answering the charges in my own way. I posited that if beautiful language was itself proof of insubstantial content, as the Clinton campaign has been asserting, then Abraham Lincoln must have been a shallow man, and Thomas Jefferson a puny thinker, and so on.
My point is that campaigns hit opponents with charges and the opponents answer them. The "just words" speech was in direct response to Hillary's charges, and it's hard to imagine Obama passing that up when it was so timely to use. It probably never occurred to him to credit it to his friend b/c they borrow from each other (as many do) all the time. The relevant question is whether Obama is truly a gifted speaker in his own right. I think we all know the answer to that.
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Hoe and Fact...and all great politicians and leaders are theives.
Show me a great leader who doesn't lift, beg, steal, improvise, expand-on, alter, re-think ideas, policies, programs that originate elsewhere?
It is the essense of American politics. Clinton does it -- she isn't a particularly original mind, nor, for that matter is Obama.
The real question is (or should be) were the words right? Wise? Fitting?
And, the real question for Obama -- as he lifts other's ideas and merges them with his own -- can he follow through? Can he take a brilliant idea from someone else and make it better? Make it his own? Make it work?
I don't know. I support Obama out of the hope that he can. I fear that the Clintons -- while doing everything they can to take whatever they can find and turn it into one of Hillary's solutions -- are not wedded to any idea or vision, other than the power of Hillary (and Bill) to weild power.
Its a dice roll. It is the essense of hope against, as Hillary would say, "fact". We know the fact of the Clintons and how they operate. Perhaps it is time that we hope we can act better, be better, strive for more.
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If It's Really About Change
It should be just bad when Obama does it.
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OOOPs
pushed the publish button before correcting "hoe" to make it "hope".
Seriously, not an anti-Hillary freudian slip.
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"Just words - just not Obama's words" -Times Online (London) 2/l9/08
This is getting funnier and funnier. Plagiarism isn't plagiarism unless it involves creativity, according to some, but isn't Obama promising to create "a brave new world" (quotation marks indicate I'm not claiming the expression for myself)? If his speeches are so thrilling that they cause tingling up and down Chris Matthews' leg (an exhilarating fact I only learned today), Mr. Matthews might need to get his thrills from some other source. From another point of view, this media loudmouth might be suffering from "pins and needles", although deep vein thrombosis should also be considered by his medical advisers. Apart from speeches, Obama has little to offer and most of what he says is second-hand and derivitive. His adviser on genocide, Samantha Power, is Irish (I even know her mother's name so I'm basing this statement on fact), he has a gaggle of foreign policy advisers who have been around for years, so if Senator Obama can't give original speeches, pulsating with authentic passion, what exactly can he do? He's a good dancer, it seems, but David Axelrod is THE Man, with a finger in all the pies and a toe in every door. Anyway, be of good cheer. In Farsi, Urdu and Russian, the word has got out that Barack Obama gives great oratory and they're all quaking in their shoes.
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"the casual follower/voter, who is too lazy"
Please don't jump so quickly to "lazy." A lot of people are working too hard at several jobs to read Salon. A lot of people don't even have Internet access. A lot of people see negative campaign lies and are reminded that they have no actual power. A lot of people, conversely, think that people wouldn't say things if they weren't true, and there have been studies about the fact that people continue to believe lies long after they have been debunked, for that reason. None of that is the same as "lazy."