Today's fracas on the campaign trail (well, one of them) involves the charge from Hillary Clinton's campaign that Barack Obama plagiarised part of a stump speech in Wisconsin this weekend from Massacusetts governor (and Obama supporter) Deval Patrick:
Obama:
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?
Patrick:
'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?"
Obama has admitted that he should have credited Patrick. But while this charge has come at a critical point in the campaign - on the eve of the Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries - it seems Obama's been using such language for a while. Here's what he told Ryan Lizza in March 2007 for a New Republic cover story about his political maturation:
"Sometimes the tendency in community organizing of the sort done by Alinsky was to downplay the power of words and of ideas when in fact ideas and words are pretty powerful. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal.' Those are just words. 'I have a dream.' Just words. But they help move things. And I think it was partly that understanding that probably led me to try to do something similar in different arenas."
While the plagiarism charge has set tongues awagging this week, it's hard to imagine anyone caring as much if it had surfaced a year ago.
