Was that plagiarism in Obama's State of the Union?

Writing a major political speech like Tuesday's Obama State of the Union Address is an extremely complex undertaking typically lasting weeks and involving contributions from dozens of people by the end of the prose assembly process when the elected official reads over a late draft and adds his or her own touches for spoken comfort.

We are told that President Obama had a direct hand in crafting the 6,200 or so words that millions watched on nationwide television with the members of Congress as applauding props in a joint session.

One final trick of good speechwriters is to make their written words sound like somebody else's with the vocabulary, cadence and tone of the boss. That's no easy task and one reason Obama's top speechwriter is paid the $172,000 maximum for presidential aides.

Among the numerous working drafts, the alterations and edits for delivery time, policy or political sensitivities, it's easy for nuances or key words to get dropped unnoticed from a speech as it typically goes from hand to hand.

And, of course, such addresses do not contain the kinds of source credits and detailed footnotes that a diligent Barack Obama would have required when he was elected the first black president of the esteemed Harvard Law Review exactly 21 years ago next week.

During his Tuesday evening address to a joint session of Congress Obama cited....

...by name the late Sen. Robert Kennedy as saying, “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement."

However, a number of other passages coming out of the presidential mouth struck a few listeners as sounding vaguely familiar. Talking of the need for improved education, Obama in one prominent line said, "We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea." Hmm. Turns out, someone else said those same memorable words about the time Obama was editing the law review.

The United States, that previous politician told an American audience, is the "first nation to have been founded on an idea."  But what U.S. Democrat would want to quote Britain's conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on national TV?

Over at the U.S. News site, Alvin Felzenberg, the presidential scholar, has assembled a list of other striking coincidences, parallel constructions and references from the president's 2011 speech. The headline on Felzenberg's piece is carefully phrased: "Obama's State of the Union Was Tantamount to Plagiarism."

Plagiarism is much more serious in the academic world than in the free-for-all world of politics where no patent exists on such common, trite phrases as "The time for action is now!" Or, "With all due respect, my opponent is wrong." Or the ever annoying, "moving forward."

Reporters who've logged hundreds of political speeches over the years are also struck by the amazingly identical nature of certain humorous anecdotes shared with appreciative audiences by self-deprecating politicians about what their precocious children are said to have said to them once.

And, to be honest, politics being the world's second oldest profession, there are likely few words or combinations of words that remain truly original over the milennia.

Two years ago next week during the heat of the Democratic presidential primaries, members of Hillary Clinton's team thoughtfully pointed out to reporters some striking similarities between passages in 2008 Obama speeches and debates and those from the 2006 campaign of fellow Democrat Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts.

At the time a defensive Obama, not particularly prone to saying "oops," claimed that he and friend Patrick "trade ideas all the time." Asked about giving another politician credit, Obama said, "I'm sure I should have," adding that he doubted voters much cared.

Indeed, voters and the media were then soon plunged into the Obama campaign controversy over his 20-year connection with the volatile Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose racist video sermons surfaced, altough Obama claimed no knowledge of such outbursts during his regular attendance.

Plagiarism also figured in the early demise of then-senator, now Vice President Joe Biden's presidential hopes in 1988. His unattributed and widespread lifting of material from British Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock was exposed, including even biographical details true to Kinnock but not Biden's life.

Those revelations prompted other discoveries of the Delaware senator lifting speech passages from Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey and Biden also admitted flunking one law school course at Syracuse University for plagiarizing five pages of one article for a term paper.

Thus endeth that campaign.**

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Jim Young / Reuters; Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA.

** A paraphrase of a sentence commonly used to conclude Scripture readings during religious services.

Comments

[uncleebbie]

Dear Mr. Malcolm, You wrote "... a number of other passages coming out of the presidential mouth struck a few listeners as sounding vaguely familiar" ... then cited exactly one possible example. Then you went on to Joe Biden, who did not deliver the state of the union as far as I know. So, first you stated a thesis regarding the SOTU (a number of.. presidential) and did not support it. And then you talked about things completely off topic (Biden's alleged plagiarism. Obama's non-sotu alleged plagiarism) as if it were the topic (Obama alleged sotu plagiarism). Here is my question: Where did you go to journalism school?

[rrt1]

Since when is remembering a historical event or cause to greatness plagiarism? Words of great men and ideals used for the foundation of this nation should be remembered and used used whenever those ideals are threatened. I don't think Robert Kennedy, Margret Thatcher, Thomas Jefferson, or any other historical figure would object if their ideals and words were used again to raise people up for good. Plagiarism is to protect the source from unlawful use of intellectual property for profit. Accusing the President of plagiarism in a national speech to the Congress is just plain stupid.

[Diggs]

Oh please. Obama's whole presidency is a plagiarism of Jimmy Carter.

[kikkz]

I can't tell if this is serious or not

[Barry Hussein]

If his speech had elements that were plagarized, so what? The problem isn't that his speech paraphrases others; the problem is that his speech shows no actual planning, vision , leadership or comprehension of the enormous problems facing the US as a result of the spiraling national debt. His shovel ready jobs have been a dismal failure by any measure and until Congress finally turns of the water spigot on his irresponsible spending, he will only accelerate the US towards bankruptcy. He lacks the intelligence and experience to see the tsunami headed our way.

[P. Aaron]

It's easier to plagarize when the one speaking doesn't mean a word of what they say.

[Dave]

It's absolutely hilarious to see how the author just falls over himself to demostrate that 'well, yes it is plagerism, but everyone does it, and with all those speechwriters and whatnot, nearly impossible to control and blah blah blah'. Excrement; if this had been Reagan or either of the Bush's he would excoriated them for being lying boobs or whatever.

[uncleebbie]

I just read that the author is the moderator and so far not a single comment published. hmmmm... So moderator/author/warden/inmate any chance of this or my previous comment/critique making here?

[jeanneb]

Good grief. You fail to mention the most obvious example: "Winning the Future", the overall theme of his address.

Newt Gingrich published a book bearing that exact title years ago. Obama could at least have cited him.

[Michael Kennedy]

I don't think that speech writer is worth the money. Deduct 10% for plagiarism.

[cnajj]

Look up where Kennedy got the line "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" and move on.

[Shannon Love]

Stirring phrases come from stirring ideas.

When Kennedy said of going to the moon,"We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard," it stirred peoples imaginations because everyone knew we were attempting something never done before. If Kennedy had used the same phrase about a big sewage system project, it would have seemed ho-hum.

Obama has no stirring ideas. Obama's ideas are just retreads from the 20th century. The Left in general hasn't had a new idea since the early-70s at the latest. He's forced to try and generate enthusiasm by subtly linking these tired ideas to ideas that were stirring in their day.

The best way to make that linkage in people's minds is to use similar phrasing so that he evokes the same emotion.

[Luke]

I understand your article title, and the article's subject itself, were designed to get page views, but this is a laughably stupid topic to be writing about. If the use of tired political cliches constitutes plagiarism, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single guiltless politician in America.

He said, "The state of our union is strong"! Plagiarism!

Dumb.

[OB]

HE CAN TALK THAT TALK BUT CAN HE WALK THAT WALK.

[SeanXX]

I don't think today's generation of speech writers give a whit about lifting other peoples language and not giving credit.

They are coming from a college system that you can buy term papers on line and goggle and write a paper before lights out at 12:30 AM.

Whole different set of writing values.

[Caius Marcius]

William Safire, when he was Nixon's writer, once swiped a line from an FDR speech written (IIRC) by Raymind Moley. He later felt guilty about it, and called Moley to confess and apologize. Moley just laughed, and said that he had stolen the line from Robert Ingersoll's keynote address to the GOP convention in 1876.

[Chris Taus]

I don't see what's the point of promising all the clean energy and high speed rail stuff
when the republicans in office don't believe in it and will just kill all the program in five years.

[Nancy]

It's not like Obama to credit anyone else but himself. He probably believes that he's the first and only one to say any of those things.

In his mind, he's the first, best, greatest, and only American president.

Delusional.

[uncleebbie]

Q: Was that plagiarism in Obama's State of the Union?

A: No.

[bda616]

Since when is the utilization of political platitudes plagiarism? Only a right-wing echo chamber, keyed into the wingnut talking points of the day would put forth such a transparently stupid and ill-supported accusation.

Oh, that's right. This is Andrew Malcolm's blog. Never mind.

[Cynic the Infotainer]

Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Why bring that up for this article?

I'm surprised Malcolm didn't manage to work in a paragraph about the president's "questionable" birth certificate too:

"The president says he was 'born in the USA,' but upon extensive research it's been revealed that Obama lifted that phrase from Bruce Springsteen."

[Michael]

Even worse, you didn't mention all the things he stole from his previous speeches -- EFFECTIVELY PLAGIARIZING HIMSELF! Such an outrage, he is both a thief and a victim, perhaps schizophrenic. He also used all those English words but hardly the Queen's English. Think Britain should sue him for slaughtering their language?

[Littleone]

I agree with uncleebbie here. You spoke of several topics that are off topic to this article, and saying that quoting a former President is "plagiarism". Last I checked, everyone who paid attention in school was taught that if you want to quote someone, you start with this person said, or that person said and use quotation marks. As far as I know, quoting a former Senator, his name, and saying exactly what they said and those words being in quotations is NOT plagiarism. And who cares about his connection with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that has NOTHING to do with the SOTU. Also, just to let you know, President Obama isn't the only person who looks over this speech, and if I was paying someone that much, I, too, would trust them with what they put together. And, once again, quoting someone is NOT plagiarism. Hence why the word "qouting" exists. Maybe you should've just let someone else more qualified write about his speech, and just wait to write about some guy dying from a rooster with a knife. It probably would've turned out better. Better yet, the pictures alone in this article were the only good things on this page I just read. And they weren't even taken by you. If I was your boss and saw this as something to post online, of all places, I would've fired you for not knowing the meaning of the main word in the title.