Clinton, take two: Hillary steals husband's best lines

The evidence that she is after her husband's old White House job grows stronger by the day. Hillary Clinton has long been stealing her husband's policies. Now she's (almost) pinching his best lines.

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right about America," Mrs Clinton, former first lady and currently junior Democratic senator from New York, said in the peroration of a speech to a Hispanic group this week .

Sound familiar? It was. Scroll back to Bill's first inaugural address and his peroration then, to which Hillary was obviously listening very closely. "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America," the 42nd President told the nation on 20 January 1993.

Mrs Clinton's use of the phrase could have been a slip. Possibly, though, it was Hillary herself - one of the most influential first ladies in US history - who was author of the original line 13 years ago, which was then inserted into her husband's address.

But either way, one Clinton is starting to sound very much like another. On the ever-controversial issue of abortion, Mr Clinton used to say it should be "safe, legal and rare". Exactly that formulation has been used by Hillary, shifting to a more centrist position on that, as on other issues.

On matters of style too, she is adopting some of her spouse's ways. Apart from charm and intellect, Mr Clinton's defining trait was unpunctuality. True to family form, Hillary turned up 20 minutes late for her speech.

All that's missing is a formal declaration of a bid for the presidency.