Why the "Plagiarism" Charge Against Obama Concerning His Borrowing Some Riffs From a Deval Patrick Speech May Have Legs

    It's now all over the web and will soon be all over the newscasts. On Saturday night, in a speech in Wisconsin, Barack Obama "borrowed" some phrasing from a speech Deval Patrick gave over a year ago, during his own campaign.
    It seems inadvertent; When you're as tired as these candidates must be, these things happen. It's not plagiarism when you accept advice from a friend and supporter. And, no, it won't end Obama's candidacy by a long shot -- as Joe Biden's was ended by a somewhat similar incident in 1987, when he incorporated lines of a previous speech by UK Labor Leader Neil Kinnock into his own campaign address, That was a different time, a different candidate, and the "borrowing" far more extensive and repeated.
    But this incident is going to linger for a couple of reasons. The story first surfaced in the New York Times, giving it instant validity. The charge undermines Obama's greatest strength -- his rhetoric. It plays into the charges Hillary Clinton has been making that Obama lacks heft. Perhaps most important, it's easy to illustrate; already the two speeches have been juxtaposed on YouTube and they are bound to be replayed endlessly on the news and even, perhaps, in Clinton ads. Whatever the rationale, it does look odd.
    The first "media turning point" of this campaign came when Clinton stumbled in a debate in answer to a question about giving illegal immigrants' drivers' licenses. This could be the second. It's not the kind of diversion Obama needed.