Media Matters: Media report Biden plagiarism allegations, but not previous Kinnock credits

[DeepModem Mom]

Media Matters for America: Sat, Aug 23, 2008
Media outlets reported allegations Biden plagiarized Kinnock, but not that he had previously credited him

In an August 23 article on Sen. Barack Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as his vice-presidential running mate, the Los Angeles Times reported that "when he ran for president in 1988, Biden was accused of plagiarism when he did not credit Neil Kinnock, then leader of the British Labor Party, for much of his stump speech." Similarly, in an August 23 article, The New York Times reported that Biden "was forced to quit the 1988 presidential race in the face of accusations that he had plagiarized part of a speech from Neil Kinnock," and in an August 23 article, the Associated Press reported that Biden's 1988 run for president "ended badly" after he "was caught lifting lines from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock." But those articles did not note that while Biden did not attribute portions of a Kinnock speech he paraphrased during an August 23, 1987, Democratic presidential primary debate, and during an August 26, 1987, interview for the National Education Association, Biden reportedly had credited Kinnock. According to a September 13, 1987, Washington Post article, "Biden and reporters covering his campaign said that in speeches before and after that debate the senator has given Kinnock credit for the same passionate rhetoric, which he has used repeatedly in recent weeks." Specifically, the Post reported that "John Quinlan, a reporter for the Sioux City Journal, said his notes showed Biden said he was quoting Kinnock when he used the same passage in a speech Aug. 14. Stories in The (New York) Times, The Boston Globe and other newspapers also said Biden had used the rhetoric and credited Kinnock for it."

In contrast with the August 23 Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and AP articles, an August 23 Chicago Tribune article reported:

"Twenty years ago, Biden was, in a sense, the Obama of his time, a young turk of a politician with a gift for soaring, transcendental rhetoric. But his first bid for the presidency imploded in 1988 when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock that described the candidate's working-class roots. Biden was forced from the race after the campaign of eventual nominee Michael Dukakis circulated a videotape with Biden failing to give credit to Kinnock for a speech he gave in Iowa.

Biden, however, had credited Kinnock with the remarks in his other speeches, leaving many of his supporters at the time -- and long after -- feeling like Biden was pushed from the stage unfairly."...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200808230003?f=h_latest

[Muttocracy]

1. kick

[silverweb]

2. K&R

Let's nip this in the bud.

:kick:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. I was like the Dean scream

The media didn't like Biden because he seemed conceited. Maureen Dowd broke the story without noting that he had simply forgotten to credit like he usually did.

Nobody in the audience actually believed he grew up in Welsh coal-mines!!!!

Then John Sasso put together a side-by-side video of the speeches, which was a new sort of thing at the time. Susan Estrich (Dukakis' campaign manager) encouraged the campaign to use it. The rest is history... pure media feeding frenzy.

(If I have some particulars turned around, I'm going from memory.)

[LVjinx]

6. Sounds just about like Maureen Dowd.

[cliffordu]

4. k&r

[AuntPatsy]

5. yep

:kick:

[pnorman]

7. I barely recall that incident in 1988, but plagiarism isn't what I'd like to see in a candidate

I fully expect it to come up again this year, as Rovian tactics go into high gear. It could be "canceled" with references to McCain's apparent Gulag plagiarizing, but that MM article shows that there was NO merit in the charge in the first place. Perhaps McCain can also get off the hook as easily. But in any event, I've Google-bookmarked that article for later use if necessary.

Thanks for helping clear up that matter.


pnorman

[1corona4u]

11. This should take the sting out of that...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/23/europe/EU-Britain-US-Elections.php

[DeepModem Mom]

8. a.m. FYI kick

[hedgehog]

9. I wonder how this story would have played in 1988 if there had been

cheap video cameras and the Net was as ubiquitous as it is now. The story would have been dead by the next news cycle!

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Very interesting thought. I'll bet you're right. nt

[Overseas]

12. Forget who said that if Repubs want to go back twenty years, that opens up Keating Five for review.

I heard a reporter speculate that the Republicans might not want to bring up the Biden one-time omission of a quote credit (called plagiarism for political smearing purposes) in 1988 because that would make other 20-year old missteps fair game and surely John Sidney McCain would not want the Keating Five corruption scandals to be rehashed.

And for heaven's sake for poor Joe Biden. He forgot ONCE to credit a quote and that was HYPED into a plagiarism scandal by a DEMOCRATIC primary rival and the story still lives on as "Biden's plagiarism scandal!" And we forget that all it was was Biden forgetting ONCE and his fellow Democrat pouncing on that and making it a smear. And look how long it has stuck.

Furthermore, that major reputable newspapers can go ahead and wave that old non-story around without noting that it was a one time occurrence boggles the mind. It makes that story seem equivalent to John Sidney McCain III, 8th richest in the senate, adopting Solzhenitsyn's cross story and lifting paragraphs from Wikipedia to discuss the Georgian crisis.

[DeepModem Mom]

14. Even I, and I think others here at DU, didn't understand the facts...

about this "plagiarism scandal." I was really glad to see this info that clears it up in my mind, and, I hope, in others.

[Overseas]

15. Yes, it's sad that Biden forgot to credit a quote source ONCE, decades ago, and it remains a story.

Meanwhile JSM III adopts the Solzyhenitsyn cross story and slips it into his talks here and there, even though the incident wasn't impressive enough for him to include in stories and interviews about his captivity written before the Gulag Archipelago was published.

And meanwhile, the "distinguished" John Sidney McCain III, who's supposed to be the better candidate on foreign policy, needs Wikipedia to give him data about Georgia, even though he has had a paid lobbyist for Georgia on his staff for a long time. The national security candidate needs Wikipedia to get up to speed on a foreign policy crisis? If he's so concerned about Russia, doesn't he already know enough about the former Soviet states to talk extemporaneously? No he does not. Ditto on his great concern about the Iraq war-- needs Lieberman to tell him about Sunnis and Shiites.

The Pro-Republican bias of major news media has been disappointing for a long time now, and has gotten worse with increased media consolidation. I remember great disappointment during the Kerry v. Bush campaign too. Major media didn't report much on Dubya's poor military career, and gave the smearing swift boaters too much coverage.

[Life Long Dem]

13. I like how they always use the word "Similarly" and say the same thing.