Plagiarism - It's okay if Clinton does it

By Libby

The alleged Obama plagiarism is still dominating the buzz tonight. Cernig and Sha covered the morning edition so I'll give you the evening update. Jake Tapper's latest post brings a new spark to the story.

In a conference call just now the Clinton campaign would not guarantee that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has never used someone else’s rhetoric without crediting them.

In fact, Wolfson seemed to say it wouldn’t be as big a deal if it were discovered that Clinton had “lifted” such language.

“Sen. Clinton is not running on the strength of her rhetoric,” Wolfson said.

Joe Gandelmann proffers a good guess on what the back flash on this will be and it won't be good for Hillary.

I read at least half of the posts on this. The Clintonites were citing Tapper's coverage all day. I was wondering what the response would be to this development. Since TalkLeft has, as far as I can see, pretty much joined the Clinton camp, perhaps Jeralyn's post offers a clue.

Ignore the speeches. Who has the best and strongest record, the most experience and the ability, once elected, to get their agenda through Congress? Who will be a better and more electable candidate against the Republicans in November?

Let's not get sidetracked.

Good advice even though I think it comes out of a realization by the Clinton camp that their 'explosive revelation' is about to blow up in their faces. Nonetheless, Clinton would do well to figure out a way to run a more positive campaign. Call me crazy, but countering the politics of hope with the politics of negativity doesn't sound like a winning strategy. Not now, and not in November.