NILES, Ohio -- Sen. Barack Obama made clear this afternoon that he is decidedly unimpressed with the flap over his decision to borrow a few memorable lines about speechmaking from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D). Talking with reporters at a titanium plant near Youngstown, Obama said Patrick is a friend and supporter who suggested the lines in answer to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's implication that he offers the nation little more than a pretty voice.
All things considered, Obama said, he should have given Patrick credit for the lines he delivered Saturday night at the Wisconsin Democratic Party's dinner in Milwaukee. "Well, look, I was on the stump," Obama said when asked why he didn't attribute the lines.
"He had suggested we use these lines. I thought they were good lines. I'm sure I should have. Didn't this time." Obama said he does not think "this is too big of a deal." Alluding to the fact that it was Clinton's campaign that first alerted the media to the shared language, Obama had something to say about Clinton's own campaign language, including her use of the signature Obama rallying cry, "Fired up! Ready to go!"
"When senator Clinton says, 'It's time to turn the page,' in one of her stump speeches or says she's fired up and ready to go, I don't think that suggests that she's not focused on the issues she's focused on." Obama said it's not as though he can't turn a phrase without help. "I've written two books. Wrote most of my speeches," Obama said at a planned press conference after touring RTI Titanium.
"Deval and I do trade ideas all the time and he's occasionally used lines of mine and I...used some words of his. And, I would add, on occasion Sen. Clinton has used words of mine as well. "And I don't think that's really the kind of stuff the workers here are concerned about."............
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