At last night’s presidential debate in Austin, Texas, Senator Hillary Clinton accused Senator Barack Obama of plagiarizing part of his campaign speech.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: “Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That’s, I think, a very simple proposition. And, you know, lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox. And I just don’t think” —

Sen. Barack Obama: “Come on. That’s not what happened.”

bq.Sen. Hillary Clinton: “No, but, you know, but, Barack, it is, because, you know, if you look — if you look at the YouTube of these videos, it does raise questions.”

Senator Obama dismissed the criticism.

Sen. Barack Obama: “The notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who’s one of my national co-chairs who gave me the line and suggested that I use it, I think, is silly, and — you know, but this is where we start getting into silly season in politics and I think people start getting discouraged about it.”

Earlier in the debate, Obama and Clinton sparred over whether the U.S. should hold talks with the next Cuban leader.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: “I believe that we should have full diplomatic engagement where appropriate, but a presidential visit should not be offered and given without some evidence that it will demonstrate the kind of progress that is in our interest and, in this case, in the interest of the Cuban people.”

Senator Barack Obama said he would be personally willing to meet with Raul Castro or whoever becomes the next leader of Cuba.

Sen. Barack Obama: “The problem is if we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time, and I think that it’s important for us, in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step. That’s the kind of step that I would like to take as president of the United States.”