Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

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Washington Sketch: Fired up and Ready to Bore

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank sketches one of Hillary Clinton's campaign stops in Nashua, NH.

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Obama has also been caught with his hand in the Clinton cookie jar. The Chicago Tribune pointed out that Obama's stock line from Martin Luther King Jr. about "the fierce urgency of now" was uttered by Clinton on Nov. 1, 10 days before Obama used it in a celebrated speech in Iowa.

But, measured by number of items stolen, Clinton seems to be more perpetrator than victim. On May 2, Obama told the California Democratic convention: "It's time to turn the page." Eleven days later, Clinton declared that "people are anxious to turn the page." Also on May 2, Obama noted that he "turned down the corporate job offers" after law school; 10 days later, Bill Clinton said in a video, "she turned down all the lucrative job offers." In February 2007, Obama told voters in Iowa that they should "kick the tires and be clear that I have a grasp of the issues," while Clinton said in September, "you got to kick my tires and see whether or not I'll collapse."

After Clinton launched a radio ad in Iowa last week declaring that she is the candidate representing "hope" -- Obama's signature theme -- Time magazine's Mark Halperin posted the headline "She's a Hopemonger, Too," over an image of Clinton's head superimposed on the cover of Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Speaking of audacity, Clinton, in an appearance in Nashua Sunday that lasted nearly two hours, spoke about how she "deeply believes in the American Dream" and wants "to make sure we are not the first generation of Americans to leave our country worse off than when we found it for our children."

Contrast that to Obama's November speech, "Reclaiming the American Dream," in which he argued that we "have the responsibility to make sure that our children can reach a little further and rise a little higher than we did." While Obama observed that "Americans share a faith in simple dreams," Clinton urged that "our country keeps faith with their dreams."

Of course, it may just be coincidence that Clinton singled out "all of the young people" in the hall after Obama had done just that, or that Clinton spoke of "change you can count on" after Obama made a slogan of "change we can believe in."

Others seem to be more than coincidence. Here's Clinton on Sunday: "I want to find Republicans and independents, I want to find people across our country who share my commitment . . . to the reality of change." And here's Obama last week: "You can come together as Democrats and Republicans and independents and stand up and say that . . . we are one people, and that our time for change has come."

Of course, it isn't all an echo of Obama. Clinton spoke of Mario Cuomo, the "wonderful former governor of New York [who] used to say that in politics, you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose."

Obama never used that line. Bill Clinton did -- in 1993.