For example, Wednesday's State of the Union ripped off multiple sources but to focus on only one passage, we'll note the following section:
But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year. And what keeps me going -- what keeps me fighting -- is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism -- that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people -- lives on. It lives on in the struggling small business owner who wrote to me of his company, "None of us," he said, "are willing to consider, even slightly, that we might fail."
It lives on in the woman who said that even though she and her neighbors have felt the pain of recession, "We are strong. We are resilient. We are American."
It lives on in the 8-year-old boy in Louisiana, who just sent me his allowance and asked if I would give it to the people of Haiti. And it lives on in all the Americans who've dropped everything to go some place they've never been and pull people they've never known from rubble, prompting chants of "USA! USA! USA!" when another life was saved.
The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people.
Sound familiar? It should.
We're honestly surprised he didn't toss out, "Ingonyama nengw' enamabala."
That garbage, boys and girls, is what you get when speech writers stay up too late waiting for inspiration, find none and pop in DVDs of The Lion King II Simba's Pride (see "He Lives In You") and Death Becomes Her, specifically the funeral scene. Here's a sample of the latter:
And it's here, among us, in the hearts of his friends. And the secret of eternal youth right here in the lives of his children and his grandchildren. It is my opinion that our beloved Ernest is one man who will indeed live forever.
Those assembled Wednesday night should have followed Meryl Streep's lead and uttered her line of reply, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."