The Obamas Struggle With Words

The Clinton camp has brought up two instances where Barack Obama has lifted parts of his speeches from someone else. Yesterday in a speech in Wisconsin Obama used a passage from a speech given last year by Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick, who happens to be a friend of Obama. The Clinton camp is also bringing up a November 6, 2007 USA Today article which has Obama again using passages from his friend Patrick. “The point we’re making overall is that Senator Obama’s record as a senator and as a public official is thin,” said a senior Clinton adviser. “If you’re asking an electorate to judge you on your promises and you break them, and on your rhetoric and you lift it, there are fundamental problems with your campaign.” Obama said it wasn’t “too big a deal,” to use someone else’s words as his own. “Well, look, I was on the stump. He had suggested we use these lines. I thought they were good lines,” Obama said. Then he added, “the notion that using a line from one of my national campaign co-chairs . . . is somehow objectionable, somehow doesn’t make sense.” But Barack wasn’t the only Obama having trouble with words. His wife Michelle told an audience in Wisconsin that, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback… not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” So until now Michelle admits she has had nothing to be proud about in America, at least not until we tried to make her husband the President.
Alan Cosgrove

Here is video of Barack Obama using passages from Patrick’s speeches;