Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama veered from collegial to clenched and combative in a debate on Thursday, with Mrs. Clinton turning especially aggressive as she all but accused Mr. Obama of plagiarism and derided his political message as “change you can Xerox.” In her sharpest attack to date on the originality of his oratory and ideas, Mrs. Clinton cited news reports about Mr. Obama’s nearly verbatim use of remarks first delivered by a close ally, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. She argued that Mr. Obama had drawn great praise for his speeches, and then questioned whether they had been plagiarized. Playing off a trademark line of Mr. Obama’s, she said: “Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in. It’s change you can Xerox.” The comment elicited loud groans and some applause from the audience at the University of Texas at Austin.
New York Times
Debate Takes On Contentious Air
(Feb. 22)
