Cheer up my fair lady; it is not as bad as it appears. I do not know exactly what it is that Barrack Obama lifted from your speeches because I have more important things to do these days than investigate this sort of thing but whatever it was, it cannot be as bad as you make it sound. In fact, if there is any truth in what you are saying, Hillary, you should be flattered that someone saw fit to imitate you.
Let me remind you of something that has to do with a speechwriter and organizer to your husband's campaign in the early 1990s. I forget his name but he is the one who came up with the phrase: "It's the economy, stupid!" By all accounts the phrase had a huge impact on Bill Clinton's campaign and contributed enormously to his election as President of the United States even though the US economy had not yet deteriorated a great deal when all this took place.
Let us now switch to Canada and recall what was going on here concurrently with those events. Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada and the country was in the middle of a campaign of its own as we were inching forward to a referendum on a new constitution which would have brought the Province of Quebec into the fold. By far the most intellectually honest politician to grace this land, Prime Minister Mulroney wrote me a letter asking me to join the debate and I responded positively.
Things went well as we approached the day of the vote and the consensus was that we were going to win this thing. In fact, the Prime Minister was so certain of such outcome he intimated to someone in the press gallery that he rolled the dice and was confident of victory.
Since our economy was in a worse shape than yours and was sliding fast towards a recession thus threatening to add to the problem of unemployment, I thought I could take time off from discussing the cultural and constitutional issues related to the referendum and do something for the economy.
Another of our problems was that our dollar was losing value because your country and the rest of the World were not buying as much of our resources which included gold. Not only that, but the International Monetary Fund was talking about selling some of its gold reserves to help the poor nations alleviate their debt. In addition, some gold producing countries such as South Africa, Australia and Russia were selling huge amounts of gold to smooth over the cash crunch they were experiencing.
The net result was that the price of gold was depressed to such an extent that it threatened not only gold mining in this country but the entire mining industry which comprises the precious metals and the base metals.
I came up with a plan to help both the currency and the employment situation. I wrote a letter to then Minister of Finance, Don Mazankowski suggesting that the Government of Canada keep the gold mines of this country from laying off people by buying the gold they cannot sell on the World markets at a reasonable price.
Turning that gold into reserve at the central bank would maintain the value of our dollar if not help it rise. In the meantime the gold miners will be spared the pink slip, something that was going to ripple through the rest of the mining industry and the economy as a whole thus shoring up the employment picture in all the sectors.
But little did I know that the letter was going to be leaked to the press. Even though I had tried to avoid making a link between the issue of "keeping Quebec inside the Federation" and something as crass as making money, the discussion that ensued overshadowed the cultural and constitutional incentives to Quebec and replaced them with the economic incentives for staying inside the Federation.
Even though no one here put it in those words, it sounded like people were saying to each other: "It's the economy, stupid!" And guess what, Hillary, the next day someone in your husband's campaign put it succinctly and said the magic words: "It's the economy, stupid!"
The words came at a time when no one was confronting the economic issues in your country but the words acted as a catalyst to spark the economic debate both in the United States and here in Canada.
No one here or in your country doubted where that had come from but no one said it was plagiarism ether because there is a difference between being influenced by something and using the thing without giving proper credit to its source.
Taking this into account and applying it to the present situation, since you and Barrack are locked in an open campaign where the public is aware of everything that he and you are saying, you may point to where you believe he copied you but you cannot call it plagiarism. Instead of complaining, I am of the opinion that you should thank your opponent for flattering you and maybe take the opportunity to brag about it. I am sure it will make you feel better.
As for me, you may think it is a little too late to do this now, but I thank you, I thank your husband and I thank the speechwriter in the first Clinton campaign who felt there was enough merit in the letter I wrote some 15 years ago to be inspired by it.
Cheer up, Hillary, it's a good day when someone says you're good at what you're doing.