Obama Trying to Bamboozle You?

Gene Lyons, in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, says:

It’s also not the first time that Obama’s been accused of lifting others’ words. Announcing his own presidential candidacy in 1993, Sen. John Edwards said, “I haven’t spent most of my life in politics... but I’ve spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change it.” For months, Obama has been saying, “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.” An Edwards aide commented dryly, “Next thing you know, he’ll be rooting for the Tar Heels.” Of course, they all run against Washington, except Sen. Clinton, who’s touting her experience. There are a limited number of ways to say it.

But did you catch Obama in South Carolina, warning African American audiences, “Don’t be hoodwinked, don’t be bamboozled” ? You can also Google those words and watch actor Denzel Washington deliver them in Spike Lee’s brilliant film “Malcolm X”: “You’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok.” The irony of Obama’s borrowing the fictive words of Malcolm X, a black Muslim, to rebut a scurrilous e-mail campaign calling him a secret Islamist would be almost disabling, except for the greater one: All this was going on while Obama’s media acolytes were accusing the Clinton campaign of “playing the race card.” (A brilliant tactic to guarantee landslide defeat in South Carolina.)

Hummmmmm ...