Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has accused President Barack Obama of plagiarizing one of his former boss's speeches in the State of the Union address Tuesday night.
"It was eerily familiar," Thiessen told Fox News's Megyn Kelly following the president speech. "There were lines like 'Our job is to help Americans build a future of hope and opportunity, a future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, a future of hope and opportunity requires that all citizens have affordable and available healthcare, extending opportunity and hope depends on a stable supply of energy.' All of that came from the 2007 State of the Union from George W. Bush."
"So Barack Obama has gone from blaming George W. Bush to
plagiarizing George W. Bush," Thiessen added, according to Mediaite.
When Kelly asked if he had written Bush's 2007 speech, Thiessen responded, "I was the lead writer. It was the first State of the Union I was the lead writer on. And I was listening to Obama today and I was like good grief that sounds familiar."
But, Thiessen continued, "Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and conservatives, have a very different understanding of opportunity. Barack Obama believes the path to opportunity is more government. We conservatives believe the path to opportunity is more enterprise.
"And so what you've got is the president pushing a government agenda for opportunity, not the private sector," he added.
Politico's Dylan Byers, however, questioned Thiessen's claim, noting that while there were similarities between the two speeches, including the repeated use of the word "opportunity,"
no lines were actually "directly lifted from Bush's 2007 speech."
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