Posted on 10/11/2012 3:24:06 PM PDT by MichaelAsher54
Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else's words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn't seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate—just as revelations of plagiarism by Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin scarcely hurt their book sales. In 1987, before Biden quit the race, he called the incidents "a tempest in a teapot." Although most reporters disagreed then, at least enough to pursue the story, they seem now—perhaps jaded by two decades of scandal-mongering—to have come around to Biden's view.
But Biden's exit from the 1988 race is worth recalling in detail, because his transgressions far exceeded Obama's own relatively innocent lifting of rhetorical set pieces from his friend Deval Patrick, which occasioned a brief flap last February. Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect. In some ways, the 1988 campaign—in which scandal forced not just Biden but also Gary Hart from the race—marked a watershed in the absurd gotcha politics that have since marred our politics and punditry. But unlike Hart's plight, Biden's can't be blamed on an overly intrusive or hectoring press corps. The press was right to dig into this one.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Do any of you remember the sitcom - ALF?
It came out in 1988, but in one of the later episodes showed a politicain bloviating on TV saying -
“And as Joe Biden had said - There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
The American people just can’t understand plagiarism or even spell it.
The American people just can’t understand plagiarism or even spell it.
Biden was kicked out of Syracuse Law School for plagiarism. Begged to get back in and they let him. Graduated 8th from bottom. He is a liar and a sneak and did not learn his lesson by cheating in law school when he stole Neil Kinnocks speech in 1988. They shouldn’t have let him back in.
That was back when Letterman was occasionally funny. He had a top 10 list of things Biden would be doing when he dropped out of the race. One was chase skirt with Ted Kennedy, and another was spend more time with his imaginary coal mining relatives. The latter was in regard to something Joe “borrowed” from an English politician.
Biden is a slimy, lying weasel. His pretending to care about the poor - what BS! He gives about $200 a year of his fortune to charity and lives like a king spending as much of our money on himself and his family as he can. Hypocrite.
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