Marko Rollo
F L I N T O I D
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Plagiarism charges will be the next Biden scandal you'll be hearing about, so rather than hear the tale distorted by our anti-Obama friends on the board, I believe you should read the facts.
In 1987 during the Democratic presidential primary, a Michael Dukakis supporter filmed Joe Biden's speeches. Normally in the middle of his speech, Biden would quote the British politician Neil Kinnock and give him credit. During a stump speech in Iowa, he did not. The Dukakis supporter sent the tape to all the major news organizations and accused Biden of plagiarism. So here's the quote:
quote:
I was thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I'm the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest? .... Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me to sing verse? Is it that they didn't work very hard, my ancestors who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours?
These lines were very close to those of Neil Kinnock, who had said:
quote:
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to University? Why is Glenys [Kinnock's wife] the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?. . . Those people who could sing and play and recite and write poetry? Those people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football?
The story got more traction when it was revealed that during college Biden had incorrectly cited a reference on a term paper resulting in a "F" grade. Biden fixed the citation and received an 80%, but the charge of plagiarism was now substantiated in the voters minds.
Political historians generally agree that it was Biden's treating the incident as "frankly ludicrous" that lead to Dukakis moving ahead in the primary. Biden has since said on several occasions his handling of the situation in 1987 was stupid, he should have just said he was wrong, and moved forward.
The story does have a happy ending. When Niel Kinnock visited Washington some time later, Biden handed the British politician a stack of paper containing every speech Biden had ever given with the instructions to Mr. Kinnock that he was free to use any of Biden's words without attribution.
Today Lord Kinnock told the press that he and Senator Biden have become friends, and that he welcomed the Senators candidacy.
With the story told, I am now prepared for the right-wing "cut and paste" soldiers to get out their squirt guns.
So it goes (plagiarized from Linda Ellerbee)  |
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