Don't steal an Aaron Sorkin speech to attack your political rival or you will probably get caught

By Sean O'Neal | January 25, 2012 | 9:12pm

Aux Features Film

Don't steal an Aaron Sorkin speech to attack your political rival or you will probably get caught

Granted, few things can correct the course on our ships of state like the strong, blustery crosswinds of an Aaron Sorkin monologue, the many past examples of which have carried us to new heights of lofty idealism in regards to politics, sketch comedy, and how to win baseball games. But that doesn’t mean you can just steal and repurpose them toward your own ends, even when they come from one of Sorkin’s less-celebrated efforts—such as, say, 1995’s The American President. Australian transport minister Anthony “Albo” Albanese is finding that out the hard way after giving a recent speech directed at his political opponent, Tony Abbott, in which Albanese struck out at his rival using nearly the exact same monologue that Sorkin originally wrote for a scene in which Michael Douglas’ fictional president Andrew Shepherd pauses briefly from trying to bag Annette Bening to make Richard Dreyfuss look like a huge dick.

Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane—who has either a quite extensive or quite mediocre DVD collection—recognized the similarities and created the below video comparing the two, citing it as an example of how the Labor Party was “so unoriginal and devoid of ideas that the best Albo could do was to plagiarize his attack lines directly from an American movie.” In the Labor Party's defense, ideas are hard. In Albanese’s defense, he claims he didn’t know his speechwriters had lifted the words, and he’s tried to play it off with humor, tweeting, “D'oh! Stuff up (for the record, that comes from another great American, Homer Simpson).” And of course, it could have been worse. [Sydney Morning Herald via The Daily What]