Opinion: After a tame start, Obama and Clinton spar over words

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The overall tenor of the first half of tonight’s much-anticipated Democratic debate was summed up by Barack Obama’s first comment as he followed Hillary Clinton in answering a question on immigration policy: ‘Well, this is an area where Sen. Clinton and I almost entirely agree.’

Obama also became more spirited in his responses as the immigration issue was hashed over, getting in a well-received dig at the No Child Left Behind education program.

As the debate’s second half began, questioner John King launched an effort to change that, asking Clinton about her increasing effort to depict Obama as more style than substance. And the effort succeeded as the issue of plagiarism -- i.e., Obama’s recent use of speech lines first used by one of his staunch supporters, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- was raised.

Obama dismissed the flap as part of the campaign’s ‘silly season.’

But Clinton wanted to engage on the dispute, using a line that obviously had been cooked up in advance.

Lifting ‘whole passages’ from someone else’s speech, she said, isn’t ‘change you can believe in’ (one of Obama’s patented lines) but ‘change you can Xerox.’

The barb didn’t play well, at least with those in the debate hall -- it sparked some boos and hisses.

-- Don Frederick