The Obaminator

So Obama has been recieving a bit of criticism for 'borrowing' some words and ideas in his speeches, most notably from the current Gov. of Mass. Deval Patrick with whome Obama openly admits they exhange ideas and phrases.

But here is another phrase which has been central to his message lately and I believe I have the approximate source. He stated recently "the problem that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas. It's that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die." reference here. Now one year ago I was talking with a roomate about the Univ. of Chicago where Obama was a lecturer (I will let you check Wikipedia). My roomate said that his friend who attended school there said that people at the Univ. of Chicago called it "the place where fun goes to die". Of course the Univ. of Chicago and Obama are not the first places or people to have this statement attributed to them, but I found it very interesting given Obama's time at Univ. of Chicago, and especially with the claims from the Clinton campaign that he is borrowing ideas.

Really politicians in my opinion, very rarely 'create' ideas, they are more often the messengers who synthesize and communicate most effictively a certain message to the right audiences, and that is really what makes all the difference.