Friday, August 22, 2008

Joe "I exaggerate when I’m angry" Biden gets VP nod

The DrudgeReport cited AP for the story:

Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday night to be his vice presidential running mate, according to a Democratic official, balancing his ticket with an older congressional veteran well-versed in foreign and defense issues.

Following Glen Poshard's escape from consequences for copying parts of his Ph.D. thesis, this selection really illustrates that plagiarism is not harmful to one's political career, with the 65 year old Biden becoming the poster child for the cut and pasters of the 21st century. One suspects that various past statements of Biden could become issues in the campaign. Smokin!

Lest we forget, Biden got in trouble in early 2007 for his remarks describing presidential candidate Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Take that, Shirley Chisholm...

Biden is from Scranton, Pa.; can he boost Obama's stature in an eastern state that now may in play in the fall election? Only if he keeps his mouth closed... Otherwise, his "exaggerations" are likely to BECOME a major distraction, as his history of foot-shooting illustrates.

See also


Will "VP candidate Biden" walk the plank on plagiarism?



More on the plagiarism of Joe Biden



Biden's plagiarism: zeal to rekindle idealism?


Plagiarists of the world unite, you have nothing to lose, period. Biden's placement evokes the memory of Roman Hruska:

Responding to criticism that Harrold Carswell had been a mediocre judge, Hruska stated that:

"So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters and stuff like that there."
[see wikipedia]

Now, we may have some representation for plagiarists. Sorry, Allison, you walked the plank for nothing.

**On other blogs-->

answers.yahoo: Plagiarizing one term paper is like eating candy before dinner. BIG FREAKING DEAL! [IPBiz: ask Allison about that. And what about fibbing about class rank, scholarships, etc. ?]

the sigcarlfred blog reproduces text from Biden's entry on "famous plagiarists," which website awards Biden a "red level" [severe risk, tho Biden's nomination may require creation of a more severe level].

One bad aspect of Biden's past that resonates with Obama's present: taking the fall for plagiarism created the perception that Biden wasn't the real thing, wasn't authentic, but rather was a collection of other people's thoughts, stitched together. If one takes a close look at Obama's innovation/patent policies, one finds that they are borrowed from others, and are not particularly clever. Further, Obama's Clinton-esque tendency to blow with the wind, as on the troop-surge and off-shore drilling, doesn't match up well with someone who has a reputation for plagiarism and for "exaggeration". Telling people what they want to hear is great, up to the point they figure out that is what you are doing. All smoke and no fire won't heat anybody up.

**The 22 Sept 1987 article by Dionne is available on the internet. It includes the text:

Joe Biden: "I exaggerate when I'm angry, but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true about me."

AND

Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: "I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do."

**As Warner Wolf would say: "let's go to the videotape." That's one campaign ad already made.

1 Comments:

Blogger sgreerpitt said...

As a faculty member I'm truly annoyed by Obama's choice of Biden -- because I've just lost my great cautionary tale when I warn students against plagiarism.

9:51 AM  

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