Then in September 1987, the [Joe Biden Presidential] campaign ran into serious trouble when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, then-leader of the British Labour Party. Though Biden had correctly credited the original author in all speeches but one, the one where he failed to make mention of the originator was caught on video. Within days, it was also discovered that, while a first year law student at Syracuse Law School, Biden had plagiarized a law review article in a class paper he wrote. Though the then-dean of the law school, 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, which was subsequently dropped from his record. Biden also released his undergraduate grades, which were unexceptional. Further, when questioned by a New Hampshire resident 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.
Faced with these revelations, Biden withdrew from the nomination race on September 23, 1987, saying his candidacy had been overrun by "the exaggerated shadow" of his mistakes. Wikipedia
Or, more accurately, overrun by the shadow of his exaggeration mistakes.
Biden declared his candidacy for president on January 31, 2007, although he had discussed running for months prior. In January 2006, Delaware newspaper columnist Harry F. Themal wrote that Biden "occupies the sensible center of the Democratic Party." Themal concludes that this is the position Biden desires, and that in a campaign "he plans to stress the dangers to the security of the average American, not just from the terrorist threat, but from the lack of health assistance, crime, and energy dependence on unstable parts of the world." He goes on to quote
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen as saying that Biden's candidacy might be endangered by his "manic-obsessive running of the mouth." This foreshadowed Biden's January 31 remark on fellow Democratic candidate and Senator Barack Obama, frequently transcribed as, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that's a storybook, man." However, several linguists and political analysts stated that the correct transcription includes a comma after the word "African-American", which "would significantly change the meaning (and the degree of offensiveness) of Biden's comment". Still, his comments took second place on
Time magazine's list of Top 10 Campaign Gaffes for 2007.
Maybe Obama chose Biden to take some of the attack ad heat off himself.
Not to mention, it's going to be a little difficult to criticize anyone else for supporting the invasion of Iraq now, considering Biden voted for it.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
And he has one other weakness that hasn't received much attention to date. One of Biden's sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair and seems to have specialized in lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make an issue of Biden's family lobbying tie.
Yahoo
Oh, that.
And if Obama isn't really going to bring change, then....
