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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Hillary spokespeople: Give the white girl a pass on plagiarism




So it's OK for Hillary to 'lift' but not Barack?

After trying to kick up a storm about Sen. Obama's not giving credit to his friend Mass. Governor Deval Patrick for a line in a speech, Clinton's spokespersons backpedalled when put on the spot, according to ABC News.

Clinton originally tried to coyly spin the attack's impact as something the media would have to 'figure out', as the WashPost pointed out Monday --
Speaking to reporters [Sunday] night, Clinton was asked about her campaign's accusation of plagiarism against Obama. She said she had no idea what impact it will have on Tuesday's vote. "I leave that to all of you to figure out," she said, then added: "Facts are important. I'm a facts person. If your whole candidacy is based on words, it should be your own words."
However, when Clinton's team was pressed by ABC's Jake Tapper in a conference call Monday morning, this is what we got --
In a conference call just now the Clinton campaign would not guarantee that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has never used someone else's rhetoric without crediting them.

I asked Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass, if they could assure the public that neither Clinton nor McGovern has ever done what Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, did when he used the rhetoric of Gov. Deval Patrick without footnoting him.

They would not.

In fact, Wolfson seemed to say it wouldn't be as big a deal if it were discovered that Clinton had "lifted" such language.

"Sen. Clinton is not running on the strength of her rhetoric," Wolfson said.

Bob Cesca, posting on the Huffington Post, catches Hillary in a major language 'lift' of her own in her Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech last week where she used the language of Jimmy Carter and John Edward. Sans attribution. See it all here.

So, Hillary doesn't have to meet the same standards she is holding Obama to?

Aren't we supposed to be past double standards?


-- Dan Damon

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