Monday, September 29, 2008

Biden and plagiarism

The local Lawrence (New Jersey) Ledger had a letter-to-the-editor by one Newton E. Godnick which included the text:

Sen. McCain, for all his past heroism, has insulted the nation and put it in political peril by choosing Gov. Palin to be the proverbial “one heartbeat away” and has done her possibly budding career a disservice by putting her in a position of potential embarrassment.

Sen. Obama, conversely, chose Sen. Biden who adds substance, who could assume the presidency seamlessly if necessary and who augments his own qualifications for that office.


Of the many comments that followed Godnick's letter, there was just one allusion to Biden's plagiarism, which again shows that most people don't find plagiarism that big a deal. If Biden's plagiarism isn't a major concern to most voters, one begins to understand how the Harvard Business Review could publish an article with a sub-heading "Plagiarize with Pride." Allison Routman (symbolically) died for nothing.

There was an interesting comment on Daily Kos concerning Donald Trump's allusion to the Biden plagiarism, which was unknown to Wolf Blitzer:

I'm sure that a ridiculous charge about college plagiarism will be up there in the headlines, along with the meltdown of Wall Street and the banks.

The plagiarism was in law school, and was not a "ridiculous charge" but something that happened.

One comment to Godnick's letter was of interest-->

" Riddle

I am under 45 years old,
I Love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket with less than two
years as governor of my state.

DID YOU GUESS??????? Scroll down to see the answer…..

I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900 "


***from a comment on Digg-->

From the NYT:

The file distributed by the Senator included a law school faculty report, dated Dec. 1, 1965, that concluded that Mr. Biden had ''used five pages from a published law review article without quotation or attribution'' and that he ought to be failed in the legal methods course for which he had submitted the 15-page paper.

The plagiarized article, ''Tortious Acts as a Basis for Jurisdiction in Products Liability Cases,'' was published in the Fordham Law Review of May 1965. Mr. Biden drew large chunks of heavy legal prose directly from it, including such sentences as: ''The trend of judicial opinion in various jurisdictions has been that the breach of an implied warranty of fitness is actionable without privity, because it is a tortious wrong upon which suit may be brought by a non-contracting party.'' Just One Footnote

In his paper, Mr. Biden included a single footnote to the Fordham Law Review article.

In a letter defending himself, dated Nov. 30, 1965, Mr. Biden pleaded with the faculty not to dismiss him from the school.

"My intent was not to deceive anyone," Mr. Biden wrote. "For if it were, I would not have been so blatant."

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