Hillary Clinton’s Plagiarism Problem

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 5:02 AM on February 19, 2008.

What a stupid controversy, this supposed plagiarism thing. It is not just that the Clinton campaign is wrong and should apologize to Deval Patrick and Barack Obama. It isn't even that the Clinton campaign should watch their own plagiarism problems with Hillary's speeches. Their problem is they should stop acting like Republicans.

By now everyone has heard that the Clinton campaign has accused the Barack Obama campaign of plagiarism, claiming the act places doubt over Mr. Obama's whole campaign. It turns out a rhetorical strategy Mr. Obama used to counter the Clinton attacks that Obama is all words was first used by Deval Patrick. Indeed, it was Mr. Patrick who suggested that Barack Obama use the rhetorical strategy of noting that words like "I have a dream" and "all men are created equal" DO matter. The Clinton people, behind the leadership of spokesman Howard Wolfson, are attacking hard at Mr. Obama for listening to his friend Deval Patrick's advice. Yeah, this is nothing but attack politics, and beneath anyone but a Republican.

As Bob Cesca notes, Hillary Clinton, if judged by the same standards ad Howard Wolfson is judging Barack Obama, has her own plagiarism problem. OK, Cesca's is a silly tit for tat sort of article, but it reveals an important point. Hillary Clinton's strategy, as exercised by Howard Wolfson, is a desperate example of the old politics people want to get beyond.

Let's face it. Whether this is Hillary plagiarizing or Barack Obama listening to his friend Deval Partick and heeding his advice, this is not a Joe Biden moment, plagiarizing a whole speech by Neil Kinnock, an act that knocked Biden out of the 1988 Presidential primaries. This is Clinton campaign desperation, plain and simple. Whether that cadnidate is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, I do not want him or her to use the strategies of personal destruction Howard Wolfson is employing for the Clinton campaign. I do not want my candidate to act like a Republican. I'm thinking a whoile bunch of Americans, Democrat and Independent, are with me on this one.

The plagiarism problem Hillary Clinton has is not that she's used words or rhetorical strategies copied largely from Howard Dean or Jimmy Carter, as Bob Cesca suggests. Hillary Clinton's problem is that she's copying campaign strategies of personal destruction from Republicans.

Tagged as: clinton, obama, wolfson, patrick, plagarism, speechwriting

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone