News outlets revive story on Obama lifting speeches from Mass. governor  As news cycles slowed down for the President's Day weekend, several media outlets followed the lead of Clinton campaign staff by publishing stories considering whether or not Senator Barack Obama had conducted plagiarism. But most of the reports failed to take note of a similar line of inquiry that was initiated in 2007 by the Boston Globe.
Monday morning, the popular news aggregating website the Drudge Report splashed a major headline stating that Senator Hillary's Clinton campaign was accusing Obama of plagiarism after pointing to lines in a Saturday speech that evoked remarks delivered by Democratic Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2006.
"The similarities from a passage of Mr. Obama’s speech on Saturday and in remarks that Mr. Patrick delivered on Oct. 15, 2006, were highlighted by a rival campaign that did not want to be identified," wrote the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny on Monday.
The Politico's Mike Allen in a Sunday night article also noted that the reports initially came from a "rival campaign."
"A rival campaign circulated a pair of YouTube links on Sunday that make the point vivdly," he wrote.
A Monday update from Allen made it clear that the "plagiarism" charges were coming directly from the Clinton campaign, including Communications Director Howard Wolfson.
Only ABC News' Jake Tapper made it clear that the swapping of lines between Obama and Gov. Patrick had been discussed in earlier news stories, particularly an April 2007 report in the Boston Globe.
"Obama, in his Senate race, used the well-worn phrase "Yes, we can!" as a rallying cry," wrote Scott Helman at the time. "After Patrick employed the same phrase at a state Democratic Convention in 2005, a reporter alerted the campaign that it was Obama's signature line, and they went back to the drawing board, said Dan Payne, a Democratic strategist working for Patrick at the time."
Sunday and Monday's news reports all made clear that Obama and Patrick have a close relationship, having campaigned for one another in their respective presidential and gubernatorial efforts. Patrick released a statement disputing that any plagiarism had transpired.
"Sen. Obama and I are longtime friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy and language," said Patrick in a statement published by the Politico's Allen.
In the world of political speechwriting, the cribbing of ideas, words and language is not unheard of. In a Sept. 2007 account in the Atlantic Monthly written by former White House speechwriter Matthew Scully, he describes how close well-known Bush scribe Michael Gerson often came to plagiarism.
"For updates on the war against terrorism, we could expect to see [Gerson's] well-worn copies of JFK and FDR speeches plopped on the table for instruction, and for imitation that when unchecked (as in the second inaugural) could slip perilously close to copying," Scully wrote.
But while most strategic lifting is overlooked, it has occasionally derailed the electoral hopes of candidates for high offices and low.
In 1988, Sen. Joe Biden's presidential hopes came to a swift end when eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis ran attack ads highlighting the usage of passages from addresses delivered by British parliamentarian Neil Kinnock in his campaign speeches. Dukakis' attacks on Biden went further, raising plagiarism allegations the Delaware seantor had faced in law school.
Whether Monday's testy exchange will have any comparable impact is difficult to assess, but Sen. Obama's campaign was ready to fight back. His campaign staff reportedly offered up examples of Sen. Clinton lifting passages from Obama's speeches.
 
| 
