Saturday, August 23, 2008

Doesn't anyone besides me remember this???

I guess 20 years is enough of a buffer time to claim memory loss, but....

Joe Biden has already run as a Democratic presidential candidate (1988 election year), formally declaring his candidacy in 1987.

He received incredible attention as the man for the job even sometimes over the front runners of that cycle.

But in September 1987, the campaign ran into serious trouble when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, the leader of the British Labour Party at that time. Though Biden had usually credited the original author in all speeches but one, the one where he failed to make mention of the originator was caught on video. (I’m still looking for it)

It was also discovered that as a first-year law student at Syracuse Law School, Biden had plagiarized a law review article in a class paper he wrote. Though the dean of the law school in 1988 as well as Biden's former professor played down the incident of plagiarism, they did find that Biden drew "chunks of heavy legal prose directly from" the article in question. Biden said the act was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and Biden was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F.
So far I see a logical choice for Obama to pick Biden:


Biden also released at the same time the record of his grades as an undergraduate which were C's and D's with the exception of two A's in physical education, one B in a course on English writers and an F in ROTC during his first three semesters. His grades improved later in his undergraduate career but were unexceptional.

Further, when questioned once about his grades in law school Biden had claimed falsely to have graduated in the "top half" of his class, (when he actually graduated 76th in a class of 85) that he had attended on a full scholarship, and had received three degrees. In fact he had received two majors, History and Political Science, and a single B.A., as well as a half scholarship based on financial need.
Based on the criticisms the dems have had for Dubya, doesn’t it seem odd that they would tout change and yet pick a guy whose academic record seemingly imitates that of the guy dems hate most?

Faced with these revelations, Biden withdrew from the nomination race in September of 1987, saying his candidacy had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his mistakes.

Oh, my! Barack Obama has really gone after change with Biden. I am still waiting to see how “hope” comes into play with this one.

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