Voice of Panic, part 2
From a report on the Democratic debate by The New York Times:
Playing off a trademark line of Mr. Obama’s, she said: “Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in. It’s change you can Xerox.”
The comment elicited loud groans and some applause from the audience at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. Obama softly spoke over her, saying, “Oh, but that’s not what happened there,” yet eventually chose not to engage, saying he wanted to reply only to her criticism on the issues. A moment earlier, though, he had defended his use of Mr. Patrick’s language, saying that it was limited to two lines–and that the criticisms reflected a “silly season in politics.”
“The notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who’s one of my national co-chairs who gave me the line and suggested that I use it, I think is silly,” he said to applause and laughter.
I don’t care to go into a long explanation of plagiarism right now. But I will say this: What constitutes plagiarism is not the same across rhetorical contexts. Clinton’s charge only works if we accept an academic or journalistic context. Obama, however, is not writing scholarly or journalistic texts for scholarly or journalistic purposes. Further, it seems clear (and on the record) that Obama and Patrick have given each other permission to share good lines.
I disagree with the NYT on two points. First the way they have written it seems to say (but doesn’t actually) that Obama made his defense after she made her comments on it. I find that just a bit odd since unless you are reading very carefully (not likely as most people read a newspaper to get their news quickly) you will assume that Obama made his comments in response to hers, instead of the other way around. The second issue I have with NYTs article is that her “Change you can Xerox” (a prewritten sound bite if I’ve ever heard one) did not get “loud groans and some applause”, it actually got loud boos with a bit of polite applause.
Also, they didn’t though mention the most important part of that section. That particular section begins with Obama responding to a question about his use of his friends words in one of his speeches. He uses that question as a springboard to bring up one of his policy items very deftly. The floor is then passed to Hillary, and she makes her comment.
If you watch Hillary’s face as Obama begins responding she seems very pleased with herself. Almost like a smirk. And why not? He just walked into a trap that she was well prepared to use to her advantage. But as he shifts the question her smile fades, as if she realizes that he won’t end with something she can pounce on right away. He closes with the line “we shouldn’t be spending time tearing each other down, we should be lifting the country up”. Not exactly something you want to respond to with an attack. But still the topic of plagiarism was too good for her to pass up, and she had a great line prepped.
So she went for it. She wasn’t nearly as confident as she started speaking as she had been when Obama began responding to the question.
And then she gets booed. Because regardless of the facts behind the matter, what the attendees saw was Obama step above personal attacks, followed by Hillary making one.
The boos were not for the line (which was fairly good), but for her timing.
I’m interested in your comments after seeing it. If you missed it, the relevant part is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHkcyxIqpvk
I’ll be checking back to see what you thought.
Noah– I will get to this on Monday. Thanks for the link.
No problem. I love reading your blog.