WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chided Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday for accusing his friend and political ally Barack Obama of plagiarizing lines from Patrick's speeches. "I guess if you have little else to say, then you turn the trivial into the meaningful," Patrick told reporters when asked about the controversy during a gathering of the nation's governors in Washington. Clinton has criticized Obama for using some of Patrick's lines, saying that while words matter, actions mean more. She drew boos from a Democratic debate audience Thursday when she ridiculed Obama as the candidate of "change you can Xerox." Patrick, one of Obama's strongest supporters, dismissed the charges by Clinton as "sort of a tempest in a teapot." The governor, a former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, said he had offered the lines in question to Obama after Clinton's criticisms about Obama's rhetoric. "Senator Obama and I talked about this line of attack, anticipated this line of attack," Patrick said. "I suggested how I had dealt with it when the same attacks were made on me during the campaign and offered the language that I used, and he used it, and I think to great effect." Patrick scoffed at Clinton's charges that Obama lacks the experience to be an effective president. "He has a broader range of life experience, which is, I think, enormously important because we don't want just a chief policy wonk," Patrick said. "At least, I want somebody who understands what's going on not just in the White House, but in my house, and in everybody's house. I think that his ability to articulate a vision and motivate people to reach for it is not just words. I think that's an important element of leadership."
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