2002-01-23 A Plague of Originality

2002-01-23 Peter W. Morgan & Glenn H. Reynolds The Idler \plagiarism\Joe Biden/plagiarism\Glenn Reynolds/writings\The Appearance of Impropriety http://www.the-idler.com/IDLER-02/1-23.html Chapter Five: A Plague of Originality A Plague of Originality  Plagiarism charges are a staple of entertainment news, of literary litigation, and of academic scandal. The issue of plagiarism seemed to hit a modern high point, however, with Senator Joseph Biden's rather free use of language from a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden began a speech in Iowa by saying 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 British Labor Party politician Neil Kinnock, who had said: 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? Although Biden at first said that he saw nothing wrong with his use of Kinnock's phrases, the scandal forced him to withdraw from the 1988 Presidential race shortly thereafter. This link is a chapter from Morgan & Reynolds's book The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society. Further analysis of Biden's misdeed follows.

&ldquo;Although Biden at first said that he saw nothing wrong with his use of Kinnock's phrases, the scandal forced him to withdraw from the 1988 Presidential race shortly thereafter.&rdquo;   