Standing on the Shoulders of Giants^1

Everyone tuned into the US democratic primary will be aware that the Clinton camp has gone bibliography crazy in the past day or two, accusing Obama of borrowing without credit a few lines of a speech given this weekend from Massachussetts governer Deval Patrick. Clinton’s strategists hope to bring Obama’s cultish suporters back to reality, since a man with no original words is certainly not a man worth listening to for very long. Patrick fired back that his friend, Obama, was free to use his ideas and rhetoric if he liked. Possibly more remarkable than the Clinton-camp response is that of Republican strategist, Holly Robichaud. “It certainly goes in the face of his squeaky-clean image,” she wrote in a weekly blog for the Herald. “It is clear he used the same words – there is no question about it. It will hurt him, but maybe not enough for him to lose ground.” His squeeky clean image? How many of us have written a paper at one point during our careers with perhaps an improperly labelled or cited source?

As a result of Plagiarism-Gate, I’d like to be the first to recognize the source for Obama’s most memorable line to date: Yes We Can. Bob the Builder, a children’s television character created by Keith Chapman, was the source of this popular line of vernacular. He sings a song which is sourced below for all to review. I mention this because I want to make sure we’re all being as up front as possible about where our ideas come from before those drips over at Clinton and Republican headquarters decide to take a bite. And also because it’s gonna take a hell of a lot longer than a phonecall to Patrick for Chapman to come up with an animated response allowing Obama access to Yes We Can, with all the clay figures and the stop motion and all that.

1. Isaac Newton: Pigmaei gigantium humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident.

Obama Says Borrowed Lines Not a Big Deal
Free speech: For the taking  
Bob the Builder

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  1. alec says:

    I’m pretty sure that Bob is British, thus not apart of our intellectual property rules or having intellectual coitus with Obama.

  2. it’s not an IP issue, it’s just plain immoral.

  3. thepoetryman says:

    Thing is it wan’t a paper or a published speech… It was a friends words and according to the definition of plagiarism doesn’t hold water. Desperation calls for desperate measures. But as I always say, “Never look a horses gift in the mouth” or “I hold these evidences to be self-truths” or “Four years and scores of seven” or “The appalling rate of our children is literaling”…

  4. George Bush says:

    My Fellow American,

    Terrorism is the realm of terror. Let us never forget that 9/11 abortioned our right to freedom in a free place. It is- It’s- you know, the duty of all Americans to make sure that the foreigners of Islam, the terrorists know that we will not stand afraid of terrorism simply because it’s scary. I’m your president and I know what’s scary, heh heh.

    All you blogopeoples. Just don’t understand. This is a war for our country and to keep those people away from our America. It’s not an America they understand and enjoy, it’s you know, our America. We’ve got to keep it free so we are all blessed by the almighty.

    To be candide, I’ve never understood you lefties. It’s like you hate this country. You hate this war. I am your president, and I want to hug you, I want to squeeze all those unamerican thoughts right out of that unpatriotic person you are.

    So please, 9/11 is still hurting our children, and all I ask is for your support in keeping islamic abortions out the hands of our children.

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