Barack Obama,  Joe Biden

Barack Obama Watch: Guilty of Plagiarism AGAIN

Barack Obama’s Wisconsin speech from 2/17/08
That speech contained language similar to Deval Patrick’s 2006 speech called “Just Words”.

Remember when Hillary Clinton accused Barack Obama of plagiarising Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick?

Top Clinton campaign officials Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson are holding another conference call with reporters now. Wolfson is pointing to a “pattern” of alleged plagiarism by Barack Obama, suggesting that reporters look at a blog entry by ABC’s Jake Tapper which suggests another example of Obama lifting material from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

Well, Obama is doing it again.

Campaigning in Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday, Barack Obama, mocking claims by John McCain and Sarah Palin that they will challenge their Republican Party if elected, got off a pretty good line. “Maybe what they’re saying is, ‘Watch out George Bush,'” Obama said with sarcasm, according to NBC News. “Except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove-style politics — except for all that, we’re really going to bring change to Washington! We’re really going to shake things up!”

It wasn’t Obama’s line, though. It came from Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles, whose cartoon Friday featured these words along with a drawing of McCain and Sarah Palin in front of the White House: “Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we’re coming in there to shake things up!” (See the cartoon here.)

But, an Obama spokeswoman said that he used the lines “unwittingly.”

Right.

In fact, it is being discovered that Barack Obama like his Vice President Joe Biden uses other people’s words often. He plagiarizes egregiously.

Examples:

1. Patrick In 2006: “I Am Not Asking Anybody To Take A Chance On Me. I Am Asking You To Take A Chance On Your Own Aspirations.” (Gov. Deval Patrick, Remarks At The Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention, Boston, MA, 6/3/06)

  • Obama In 2007: “I Am Not Asking Anyone To Take A Chance On Me. I Am Asking You To Take A Chance On Your Own Aspirations.” “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.” (DeWayne Wickham, Op-Ed, “Obama Tries To Allay Race, Safety Concerns Of Blacks,” USA Today, 11/6/07)

2. Patrick In 2006: “We Can Disagree With Each Other Without Being Disagreeable.” “By showing that we can disagree with each other without being disagreeable.” (Gov. Deval Patrick, Remarks On Election Night At Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA, 11/6/06)

  • Obama In 2008: “We Can Disagree With Each Other Without Being Disagreeable.” (Anna Webb and Brian Murphy, “Obama Wows, Inspires Crowd At Packed Arena: ‘And They Told Me There Were No Democrats In Idaho,'” The Idaho Statesman, 2/3/08)

3. John Edwards’ September 2003 Announcement Speech: “I haven’t spent most of my life in politics, but I’ve spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change Washington.” (Sen. John Edwards, Remarks Announcing Presidential Campaign, Robbins, NC, 9/16/03)

  • Obama February 2007 Announcement Speech: “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks Announcing Presidential Campaign, Springfield, IL, 2/10/07)

4. John Edwards In 2004: “Hard work should be valued in this country, so we’re going to reward work, not just wealth.” (Former Sen. John Edwards, Remarks To The Democratic National Convention, Boston, MA, 7/28/04)

  • Obama In 2008: “We should not just respect wealth in this nation. We should be respecting work.” (CNN’s “Newsroom,” 1/5/08)

5. John Edwards In 2004: “Reject The Tired, Old, Hateful, Negative Politics Of The Past … Embrace The Politics Of Hope.” “[T]he American people, you can reject the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past. And instead you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what’s possible because this is America, where everything is possible.” (Former Sen. John Edwards, Remarks To The Democratic National Convention, Boston, MA, 7/28/04)

  • Obama Swiped This Theme Urging Voters To “Break Out Of The Politics Of The Past.” “Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday it is difficult … ‘to break out of the politics of the past,’ when the country was badly divided and Democrats lost control of Congress …” (Charles Babington, “Obama Ties Clinton To Divisive ‘Politics Of The Past,'” The Associated Press, 2/10/08)

6. Obama Has Even Swiped One Of Edwards’ Key Jokes From The Stump. “Even a new Obama laugh line — joking about pharmaceutical ads that ‘have all these people running around in the fields and stuff’ – evokes an anecdotal staple of Edwards’s 2004 ‘Two Americas’ stump speech used to ridicule the marketing budgets of pharmaceutical companies. ‘I love the ads,’ Edwards said then. ‘Buy their medicine, take it and the next day you and your spouse will be skipping through the fields.’ Obama wins the biggest response when he punches up the Edwards observation with a slyly racy kicker.” (Sasha Issenberg, “Obama Borrows From Edwards,” The Boston Globe’s “Political Intelligencer” Blog, www.boston.com, 1/5/08)

And, then there is Joe Biden who plagiarized his way through law school and his first Presidential race.

  • In 1987, Biden Plagiarized Speech By British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock. “Kinnock told of ancestors who played football after long days underground in the mines, who recited poetry and paved the way for him to become the first in his family to attend college. When he saw a tape of Kinnock in action, Biden said, … ‘it was a connect. I mean, I could tell how that man felt. That’s how I feel.’ So he used it – changing the names but little else – at a debate last month in Iowa.” (John Harwood, “Biden’s Way With Words Now Seems To Be A Liability,” St. Petersburg Times, 9/20/87)
  • “But Instead Of Crediting Kinnock, He Told The Audience He Thought Of It On The Way To The Debate.” (John Harwood, “Biden’s Way With Words Now Seems To Be A Liability,” St. Petersburg Times, 9/20/87)
  • Biden Acknowledged Kinnock Speech Didn’t Fit His Circumstances “Perfectly.” “Biden acknowledged Kinnock’s language didn’t fit his family perfectly. His father was in used car sales, his grandfather was a mining engineer. But he had been told and ‘assumed’ that other relatives had worked in the mines. And, ‘to make it clear,’ members of his mother’s family had, indeed, been to college.” (John Harwood, “Biden’s Way With Words Now Seems To Be A Liability,” St. Petersburg Times, 9/20/87)
  • Biden Withdrew From The 1988 Presidential Race Under Charges Of Plagiarism And Embellishment, Saying, “Now The Exaggerated Shadow Of Those Mistakes Has Begun To Obscure The Essence Of My Candidacy And The Essence Of Joe Biden.” (“Biden Bows Out Of Race, Blames His Own Mistakes,” Los Angeles Times, 9/23/87)
  • Biden Was Also Accused Of Plagiarism At Syracuse Law School. “[B]iden soon ran into trouble at Syracuse Law. He was accused of plagiarism after lifting five pages from a law review article for a course paper. But his pleading – ‘I implore you, don’t take my honor’ – convinced the dean to let him stay in school, take the course over, and wipe the slate clean.” (John Harwood, “Biden’s Way With Words Now Seems To Be A Liability,” St. Petersburg Times, 9/20/87)
  • Biden Admitted Some Of His Claims About Academic Achievements Were Untrue. “Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic presidential campaign battered by charges of plagiarism in his campaign speeches and in a law school paper, admitted yesterday that some of his boasts about his college academic achievements were untrue, including the claim that he had finished in the top half of his class in law school.” (James R. Dickenson, “Biden: Academic Claims ‘Inaccurate,'” The Washington Post, 9/22/87)

Sheesh. Do Americans REALLY want cheats and liars as our President and Vice President?


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