Pre-school politics.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaigns each accused the other of plagiarizing portions of their campaign speeches Monday, with the Clinton campaign accusing Obama of borrowing from a close supporter — and the Illinois senator’s campaign accusing his rival of lifting from Obama himself.

On a conference call with reporters, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said it was clear Obama had “lifted rhetoric” from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Portions of Patrick’s speeches during his gubernatorial run resemble some of Obama’s addresses this year.

“If you’re going to be talking about the value of words, the words ought to be your own,” said Wolfson.

In a statement this morning, Patrick said the two men often shared ideas and language with each other.

The Obama camp also said Clinton had a pattern of borrowing some of the Illinois senator’s signature phrases, including “Yes, We Can” and “Fired Up, Ready to Go.”

"Mommy! Billy's copying me!"

I am sorry but this is a ridiculous argument. It is one of the most common occurrences in politics for candidates to "borrow" from each other's platforms.

And as for the charge of "plagiarism" that is hardly accurate if you have the originator's permission to use their words. Besides nobody thinks that every word that Obama utters is completely original to him. I mean these candidates have speech writers and researchers on their payroll for a reason.

But if we are going to start pointing out some of the most audacious of political ripoffs that have occurred during this campaign, it would have to be the term "change", which has been borrowed from the Obama campaign by Hillary, Kucinich, Paul, Huckabee, and Romney.

And by the way Hillary borrowed "hope" as well. As if any of us have any real "hope" of "change" under a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Perhaps we can now return to a conversation about inspiration and policies if you all don't mind.