Hillary Clinton & Her Plagiarism Charges: Hypocrisy at its Finest

February 19, 2008

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If you have yet to hear the latest Hillary Clinton attacks on Barack Obama then you are truly missing out on one of the best examples of hypocrisy that we have scene in politics since Newt Gingrich and the rest of the GOP hacks during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Today Clinton levied charges against Obama that accused him of plagiarizing portions of recent stump speeches. The heated rhetoric came after segments of speeches from Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Devall Patrick were posted back-to-back on YouTube by a “rival campaign.” In the clips, both men use nearly identical language when discussing the power of words. The Clinton camp, jumped right on the issue claiming that the use of someone else’s language was telling for a candidate who leans so heavily on his oratory. And made this statement during a Monday morning conference call with reporters:

“The issue whether or not there is approval is immaterial. The public did not know that the words had come from Gov. Patrick,” said Clinton’s spokesperson Howard Wolfson. We need a president, added Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern who is “not just someone who can copy someone’s homework.”

This is where the hypocrisy begins to seep out of the Clinton campaigns pores. Hillary, the one firing accusations has a little history with plagiarism herself, a history that she seems to have forgotten about when deciding to attack Sen. Obama. You see I am sure if you follow politics, or even this primary process, you have heard Hillary Clinton use the applause line, “It takes a village to raise a child.” This phrase is not new to the Clinton arsenal, a matter of fact she wrote a book titled, “It Takes a Village” back in 1996, one which included a 10 city promotional tour that accompanied it’s release and won Clinton a Grammy for “Best spoken word album.” This is where things start to lean heavily towards the whole “hypocrite” label I have put on Hillary:

“Clinton has been criticized for not giving credit to a ghostwriter in connection with It Takes a Village. The majority of the book was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman. Feinman spent seven months on the project and was paid $120,000 for her work. Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. Clinton’s acknowledgment section began: “It takes a village to bring a book into the world, as everyone who has written one knows. Many people have helped me to complete this one, sometimes without even knowing it. They are so numerous that I will not even attempt to acknowledge them individually, for fear that I might leave one out.” During her promotional tour for the book, Clinton said, “I actually wrote the book … I had to write my own book because I want to stand by every word.” This led Feinman to complain at the time to Capitol Style magazine over the lack of acknowledgment. In 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that “New York literary circles are buzzing with vitriol over Sen. Clinton’s refusal, so far, to share credit with any writer who helps on her book.”

So it turns out that Mrs. Clinton finds it OK to have someone write a book for her, pay the person for the work, turn around and take full credit for the piece, and then years later accuse a political foe of plagiarism. To me this is not only comical, in a pathetic, “I am so desperate I will try anything” type of attack, but somewhat disturbing, in the sense that Clinton would choose to go down this road while in the back of her mind knowing that she has been, and rightly so, criticized in the past for taking credit for work that was not hers. However when you look at some of the tactics Hillary has resorted too throughout this campaign, this type of blunder really should not come as much of a surprise to anyone. Hopefully, in her continued attempts to discredit Obama, the American people will be able to filter through the legit, and bogus attacks being made by the increasingly divisive, and hypocritical Senator from New York.