"Change You Can Xerox"

I didn't see the Dem debate. The pizza place where we ate dinner had little TV monitors at each table and some of the folks were watching the debate. We watched Seinfeld. There were apparently a lot more good catch phrases in Seinfeld than in the debate, as reported by The Fix:

Asked about his lifting of lines from Gov. Deval Patrick (Mass.), Obama sought to dismiss the charges of plagiarism as the sort of politics the American public is sick of.

"The notion I had plagiarized from someone who is one of my national co-chairs who gave me the line and suggested I use it I think is silly," Obama said. "This is where we get into silly season in politics and people start getting discouraged about it."

Clinton, however, clearly believes this is a political weak spot for Obama and went after it -- hard. "If your candidacy is going to be about words, they should be your own words," said Clinton. "Lifting whole passages is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

That line, obviously prepared in advance of tonight's debate, fell flat. The crowd went silent and then a smattering of boos rang out. Obama shook his head and muttered to himself.

At least Obama isn't trying to copy an entire Administration as Clinton is. It doesn't sound like Hillary had the knockout blow she was going to need in order stop the Obama freight train.