Practice Management

Poser

By chucknewton

This is the problem that I posted about earlier.  Obama borrowing liberally from other speakers is not plagiarism, as the pundits want to describe it.  That is putting it in a legal context.  It does mean that Obama is a poser of some renown.  The question now is how big a renown?

Obama is a completely scripted candidate.  That was my earlier point.  That is terribly problematic.  He is a teleprompter candidate.  And, this represents a problem for the vision of which he speaks.  This represents a problem about his "new ideas".  They are not his vision, they are not his words, and the ideas are not "new".  When that is discovered by the electorate, they will feel cheated.

As with rock stars, as I reported, there is a big likelihood with political pop stars, with no substantial political history, that they will disappoint.  That they cannot live up to their rhetoric.  Lifting entire themes, and continuing to read only from teleprompter, makes one fear that Obama is the Milli Vanilli of the political world.  When there is a question as to what is the source of the talent, then who is this man lip syncing in front of these crowds.

What is interesting is that Ohio is now one of the fought over states coming up.  After it was discovered that it was not not the voices of Fab Movan and Rob Pilatius  on the Milli Vanilli album, it was in Ohio that lawyers in that state filed a class action lawsuit asking for refunds on behalf of local woman in Cuyahoga County who had purchased the group's Girl You Know It's True album.

I will also point out that it was in 1987, when Joe Biden was thought to be considered the front runner in the Democratic primary, that his candidacy imploded when he was accused of pladiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, the then-leader of the British Labour Party.  And rightfully so.  When you run on your inspiration, when you run on your words, and on your ideas -- when these are the center point of your entire candidacy -- then what does it mean when they are not your words, inspiration and ideas?  This is the political equivalent of lip syncing and it is at least very disappointing.

Do not think that the Republicans, led by a war hero who spent 5 torturous year in an enemy prison camp, who actually led the positions that Obama claims in his limited Senate career, will not have a field day with this.   

Full post as published by Chuck Newton on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).