Australian politician borrows part of a speech from an Aaron Sorkin film

Some of the best moments from “The West Wing” took place between President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his staff, particularly his speechwriters. An episode in season four has a scene where Bartlet and his aides are backstage before a campaign speech for which he must address the tragic bombings at Kennison State University. After lightly bickering over details, Bartlet says, “I think I’m just going to talk a little bit,” then bursts on stage and extemporizes an emotional address about the state of education in America.

It’s one of “The West Wing”’s many “fly on the wall” moments that led the viewer to picture President George W. Bush, or if you’re watching now, President Obama, in the same moments, quibbling with speechwriters about what angle to take and which words to emphasize, before thrusting himself on stage for a campaign speech or a State of the Union Address.

Of all the little Washington moments that Aaron Sorkin helped us imagine, he thankfully never led us to picture a speechwriter watching a Sorkin-penned film like “The American President” in his office, and then incorporating the movie speech into a real-life speech. That would be really self-involved, unnecessarily meta, and entirely unrealistic.

Nonetheless, that appears to be exactly what happened in Australia with transport minister Anthony “Albo” Albanese. According to yesterday’s article on International Business Times, Albanese was caught delivering a speech very similar to one given by Michael Douglas in 1995’s “The American President.”

Albanese’s Speech:

“In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them. Unfortunately Tony Abbot is not the least bit interested in fixing anything.

“He is only interested in two things: making Australians afraid of it and telling them who is to blame for it.

Michael Douglas’s Speech:

“We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them and whatever your particular problem is I promise you that Bob Riompsden is not the least bit interested in solving it.

“He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

It’s pretty obvious that “Albo” or his speechwriter borrowed from the film. But I suppose if you’re going to borrow from entertainment, it’s better to pull from a Sorkin script than from “Pokemon: The Movie 2000,” which is what Herman Cain apparently did.

Below is a clip of the two addresses back to back, as well as the clip from “The West Wing” I mentioned above.