I'm certainly not an Obama supporter -- anyone who has spent any time reading here knows that. But I do have to defend him against the silly plagiarism charge leveled by the Clinton campaign (and some of my fellow conservatives).

Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign's communications director, today accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of committing “plagiarism” in a speech in Milwaukee on Saturday night.

Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters.

On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”

"When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader," said Wolfson.

Now I'll be honest -- the idea is similar. And both Patrick and Obama admit that they had discussed the idea that underlies their respective statements. But the idea expressed is hardly original with Deval Patrick -- the notion that words are powerful things in and of themselves, and that they have the capacity to move entire societies and change the world.

When did I first encounter that idea? In Mr. O'Keefe's ninth grade English class. I heard it again in any number of classes -- speech, English, history, and political science -- during the rest of my academic career. I've said something similar to my students in my own classes

And let's look at what both men did -- they strung together some of the most electrifying words of American history and noted that they were "just words". It isn't an original idea. And while the phrasing is nearly identical, which initially raised some questions in my mind, there is really nothing distinctive what was said. Heck, it wasn't even a particularly profound idea -- I'd almost call it a platitude.

And one further point -- our politicians today rarely speak an unscripted word. Even the ad libs are planned in advance, as I would suggest this one was. Few and far between are the Daniel Websters and Henry Clays who produce all their own material -- most political speechifying is the result of the work of hired guns and advisers. Barack Obama took an idea proffered by one of them and ran with it. Hardly indicative of a character flaw. How many of her words on the campaign trail actually originated from the pen of Hillary Clinton, and how many came from those of her staff and supporters?

In my opinion Barack Obama is an empty suit -- but this particular issue doesn't prove it.

And it looks like at least one Clintonoid agrees with me.