Posted by
Mike Bates on Sunday, September 14, 2008 9:59:20 PM
On Saturday, CNN presented the special
"Joe Biden Revealed."
Anchored by Abbie Boudreau, the show touched on why Biden dropped his 1988 presidential bid.
Discussing it with Boudreau was Senior Biden adviser Ted Kaufman (Kinnock spelled incorrectly throughout transcript):
BOUDREAU (on camera): Do you think he was ready at that point to become president?
KAUFMAN: Yes, I think he was ready to become president.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): On June 9th, 1987, Biden in his home state of
Delaware announced that he would run for president. He says fewer than
one in five Americans even knew who he was.
BIDEN: Today, I announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.
BOUDREAU: It was his first time on the national stage, and Biden seemed to love it.
BIDEN: I'm here to have you look me over, and if you like what you see, I'd like your help.
PROF. JOSEPH PIKA, UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE: Biden is the kind of guy
that is very charming when you meet him in person. He has got a
megawatt smile and he's very attentive. He's very interested in the
people that he meets. When you meet Joe Biden, you are impressed and
you remember the encounter.
BIDEN: Hello, again. I'm Biden.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
BOUDREAU: One of the primaries major events, a forum of the legendary Iowa State Fair. It was August, 1987.
BIDEN: I started 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?
BOUDREAU: But his speech sounded familiar. Just like a speech by British Politician, Neil Kinnick.
NEIL KINNICK, BRITISH POLITICIAN: What am I? The first Kinnick in a thousand generations...
BIDEN: Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university?
KINNICK: Why is Kinnick is the first woman in her family.
BIDEN: 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?
BOUDREAU: Biden had attributed Kinnick's speech many times before,
but this time he didn't give credit. Three weeks later, it was front
page news. Joe Biden was accused of plagiarism.
KAUFMAN: And the irony is after the speech was over, he was standing
around with some of our advisers, and somebody said, hey, you didn't
attribute it. Everybody kind of agreed -- well, let's not make a big
fuss of this note, because the press has already heard him attribute it
so many times before.
BOUDREAU: One week later, more plagiarism charges. The press was
zeroing in. Biden held a news conference to address the crisis and to
admit he failed to properly footnote a portion of a law school paper.
He claimed he misunderstood the rules of citation.
BIDEN: I made no mistake in my view in using the Kinnick quote, and
on all but one occasion to the best of my knowledge, I attributed
directly to Kinnick, or I even went and told the whole story about
Kinnick. I'm in this race to win and here I come. Thanks a lot, folks.
BOUDREAU: But six days later, a complete turnaround.
BIDEN: The exaggerated shadow of those mistakes has begun to obscure
the essence of my candidacy and the essence of Joe Biden. I've
concluded that I will stop being a candidate for president of the
United States.
CNN didn't detail the extent of Biden's deceptions. David Broder
and Eleanor Randolph wrote in the September 17, 1987 Washington Post:
After that (Kinnock) report, individuals associated with
other campaigns pointed out to reporters other passages from Biden
speeches containing nearly verbatim repetitions, without
acknowledgement, of lines first uttered by the late Sen. Robert F.
Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and former vice president and senator Hubert H.
Humphrey (D-Minn.).
A week later, the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Cliff Haas reported:
Biden's Feb. 3 speech at the California state democratic
convention echoed almost word for word parts of speeches Robert Kennedy
gave in 1967 and 1968 during his presidential campaign. Biden did not
attribute his remarks to Kennedy.
The same story summarized Biden's plagiarism in law school:
On Sept. 17 academic officials revealed that Biden was
accused of plagiarism in 1965, his first year at Syracuse University
Law School. Biden admitted that he copied five pages of material from a
law review without attribution in a term paper for a legal methods
course. He received an F for a grade, which was changed to a B when he
repeated the course.
Also noted was:
In a heated exchange with a questioner at an April 3
political gathering, Biden claimed that he graduated in the top half of
his law school class, received a full academic scholarship, won an
international moot court competition, won an award as outstanding
political science student and graduated from the University of Delaware
with three degrees. In fact Biden graduated 76th in his law school
class of 85, had only a half-scholarship based on financial need, was
only nominated to be named outstanding political science student and
graduated from Delaware with a single B.A. in political science and
history. Biden later said that he exaggerates when he is angry.
He sure does, managing to turn a single degree into three and
graduating in the top half of his class when the reality is he was
ninth from the bottom. Copying five pages without attribution is
considerably more than an innocent failure "to properly footnote a
portion of a law school paper."
Joe Biden wasn't truly revealed in "Joe Biden Revealed." His
numerous duplicities over an extended period of time warranted more
specifics than those provided by CNN. Just a guess, but I imagine the
network would have covered similar failings by Sarah Palin in much
greater depth.