Obama turns tables on Clinton

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By: Mike Allen

Under fire for uncredited echoes of another candidate’s speeches, the Obama campaign sought Tuesday evening to turn the tables on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) by highlighting her clearly false claim that her campaign had not fueled the controversy.

Clinton, in remarks to the ABC affiliate in Honolulu that were reported by the Chicago Tribune, asserted: “Look, it’s not us making this charge. It’s the media.”

But on Monday, the Clinton campaign announced a conference call “to discuss a recent speech delivered by Sen. Obama” and included a YouTube link that showed Obama remarks side by side with similar comments by his friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

On the call, Howard Wolfson, the campaign’s communications director, said: “When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader.”

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mailed statement: "Senator Clinton knows full well that her campaign held a conference call with reporters to fan these flames and the fact that she suggested her campaign had nothing to do with it is exactly the kind of evasive tactic voters are rejecting."

On Tuesday afternoon, a rival campaign began circulating another pair of videos Obama echoing Patrick, who at the time was running for Massachusetts governor.

This time, Obama is reading from notes or a text. In the instance that drew a charge of plagiarism from Clinton's campaign earlier this week, the senator was apparently ad-libbing — the remark did not appear in the text released by his campaign.

Here is Deval Patrick on June 3, 2006, according to an 11-second YouTube video posted Tuesday afternoon:

"I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I'm asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Here is Barack Obama on Nov. 2 in Manning, S.C., according to an 11-second YouTube video posted nine minutes later:

"I'm not just asking you to take a chance on me. I'm also asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

An account of the South Carolina speech was published last year in an opinion piece in USA Today and was circulated Tuesday morning by the Republican National Committee in a document headed "Copycat Candidate."

Wolfson, the Clinton campaign communications director, said a few hours later on a conference call with reporters: "We are seeing a pattern here. I'm sure you will all be looking into it. Here is another example of where the words match exactly."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," the governor called the suggestion of plagiarism "an elaborate charge and kind of an extravagant one."

"I mean, I've known Barack for, jeez, almost 15 years now," Patrick said. "We've talked a good deal during my own campaign and his. We fully expected, I certainly expected, that he would sustain a charge at some point of trying to belittle his ability to motivate people with language. I got the same kind of attack when I was running for governor of Massachusetts. ...

"The point is that we've got a candidate here, Barack Obama, with terrific ideas, with, frankly, more lawmaking experience than Hillary Clinton, as fine a candidate as she is. But he has an added dimension, which is the ability to articulate a vision and motivate people to reach for it. And I think that's a terrific asset to bring to bear."

David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser and a former consultant to Patrick, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe": "Deval Patrick and Barack Obama are the best of political friends. They've known each other for 15 years. They're very close. They talk all the time. ...

"We're at a point in the campaign here where every little thing is going to be a big thing for a short burst of time, because we're getting down to the short straws. Obviously, Sen. Clinton feels pressure. And her campaign is going to be very opportunistic, I expect."

Without naming him, Axelrod then took a shot at Wolfson: "Our buddy in the ugly sweater will show up on your show and try to make this and other things an issue. Anything they can grab on to now."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8594.html

[no name 1]

Clinton camp hits Obama again on copying

Posted: 06:39 PM ET

(CNN) – A day after Sen. Barack Obama admitted to borrowing language from a speech by ally Deval Patrick, a second instance of Obama lifting language from a past speech by the Massachusetts governor has been identified.

“But you see, I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations,” Obama is quoted as saying in a November 6, 2007 USA Today article.

A little more than a month later, ABC News reported that he used the same line at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire campaign event, crediting Deval Patrick as the author: "But you know in the end, don’t vote your fears,” Obama was quoted as saying. “I’m stealing this line from my buddy (Massachusetts Gov.) Deval Patrick who stole a whole bunch of lines from me when he ran for the governorship, but it’s the right one, don’t vote your fears, vote your aspirations. Vote what you believe."

Patrick had used the line when he spoke at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention in 2006, when he told the crowd: “Because I want you to understand, I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I’m asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations.”

A Boston Globe article in the spring of 2007 titled “Patrick, Obama campaigns share language of 'hope'” noted many similarities between their stump speeches, and said that the two men shared a “symbiotic friendship.”

Obama “is running on his powerful oratory and his promises,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday as he pointed out the similar turns of phrase. “Therefore, it is appropriate when the oratory comes form someone else to point that out and for questions to be raised about it.”

The Obama campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the second instance of similar language identified Tuesday. In a statement to reporters, Bill Burton accused Clinton’s campaign of attempting to “fan the flames” around the allegations.

link

Edited February 20, 2008 by illumine

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

[no name 1]

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

oh, so you can post baiting things all you want & it doesn't count? Shoulda just made a new topic. Next time!

Edited February 20, 2008 by illumine

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

[no name 1]

are you playing your little violin?

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

oh, so you can post baiting things all you want & it doesn't count? Shoulda just made a new topic. Next time!

Two big time VJ libs already goin at it

[no name 1]

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

dueling copy and paste.....i can hear the banjos now.

It would only be dueling if I replied.

oh, so you can post baiting things all you want & it doesn't count? Shoulda just made a new topic. Next time!

Two big time VJ libs already goin at it

It's OK, Steven & I can respectfully disagree.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's OK, Steven & I can respectfully disagree.

That's right. Life would be boring if I thought exactly alike.

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

are you playing your little violin?

only if you play your tuba.

It's OK, Steven & I can respectfully disagree.

That's right. Life would be boring if I thought exactly alike.

[dalegg 143]

But on Monday, the Clinton campaign announced a conference call “to discuss a recent speech delivered by Sen. Obama” and included a YouTube link that showed Obama remarks side by side with similar comments by his friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

This kind of reminds me of when Gore had that public conference call discussing the vote count in Florida. If she doesn't watch it, Obama is going to pick Edwards instead of her for a VP.