Well, like it or not, it's blowing up.

Mr. Obama told reporters he should have credited Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a friend, for a passage in a speech he delivered on Saturday in Milwaukee.

As Mrs. Clinton campaigned in Wisconsin in advance of the primary there on Tuesday, one of her top advisers, Howard Wolfson, convened a conference call with reporters to accuse Mr. Obama of plagiarizing Mr. Patrick’s remarks from a 2006 campaign appearance.

The controversy arose after Mr. Obama, of Illinois, delivered a speech at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin.  He responded to criticism from Mrs. Clinton, of New York, who argued that Mr. Obama might deliver smooth speeches, but that she was better prepared to solve problems.

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” he said in his remarks.  “ ‘I have a dream.’ Just words?  ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’  Just words?  ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’  Just words?  Just speeches?”

The passage was similar to one used by Mr. Patrick in response to similar criticism.

The defense?

“Let’s see,” Mr. Obama said.  “I’ve written two books.  I wrote most of my speeches.  I would add that I noticed Senator Clinton, on occasion, has used words of mine as well.”

The exchange injected a fresh dose of contention into the bitter fight for the Democratic nomination.  Mr. Obama said two of his standard lines — “It’s time to turn the page” and “Fired up and ready to go” — have made their way into Mrs. Clinton’s remarks in recent weeks.

Mr. Patrick said he and Mr. Obama discussed the argument in advance and he encouraged his friend to defend himself the same way he did during his race in 2006.

 
As stupid and meritless as the Clinton attack is (Obama is guilty of copying two words from his friend's rhetorical framework of other famous quotes, not plagiarism—if it was plagiarism, he would have to apologize to MLK, JFK, and Thomas Jefferson, as would Deval Patrick), in the absence of any other Obama hit-jobs, it will make an impact.  This story is already burning up the blogosphere here, here, here, here and here. 

Though Obama has offered that substantively the controversy isn't "a big deal"—and it isn't—high-profile comparisons to Joe Biden are typically never a good thing for any living man, woman or child.  Barack's current momentum could be broken if this thing continues to grow legs.  The best thing to derail it would naturally be a solid victory out of Wisconsin tomorrow.  The worst thing would be a loss of any size, as the press would couple this story with the loss, and claim that the story itself had capsized his campaign, and that the votes proved it.

If John Edwards could make up his fucking mind and decide whether or not to endorse Obama, that would certainly help recover the news cycle, too.

I'm getting a queasy feeling, and my very expensive "sense memory" college theatre training enables me to immediately place my nausea in an historical context.  I'm taken back to the three weeks following Al Gore's 2000 convention speech, when one, by one, by one, the opposition and the press mutated him from a trustworthy, progressive populist ahead in the polls, into an obsessive liar so pathological no sentient human being could dare trust him with their vote.

Like so often, I hope my paranoia is just that...