Maybe Biden thought we all forgot. We didn’t. Did you notice that anecdote he replayed again during CNN’s town hall event? The little story about how he was the first in his family to go to college. It was an anecdote that helped kill Biden’s 1988 presidential hopes. He plagiarized portions of a speech from then-UK Labour Leader Neil Kinnock.
What Biden says here is not true. Lying about being the first to go to college was a significant part of the Kinnock plagiarism scandal. Don't expect reporters to know everything, but this lie is a pretty significant chapter in Biden's political career, and it's not praiseworthy. pic.twitter.com/LwFVc6w43t
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 18, 2020
As Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist noted, some in the liberal media tweeted the excerpt out last night unaware of the devastating impact it had on Biden’s campaign in the 1980s. Also, it’s in keeping with other lies Biden has doled out about his academic record. He’s no scholar, folks. And at times when he’s spoken about his high IQ with regards to his supposed academic achievement—there’s no evidence to demonstrate that point at all. In fact, during his years in law school, Biden actually plagiarized some reviews there as well (via The Federalist) [Bold text indicates Biden’s rant]:
Biden’s first failed run for the presidency was ended by his dishonesty over his academic record and his plagiarism, including the biography and speeches of British Labor politician Neil Kinnock.
On a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 1987, a voter asked Biden where he attended law school and where he placed in his class.
Biden lashed out at the man angrily, making a series of claims that were not true:
BIDEN: I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my — in my class to have a full academic scholarship. In the first year in law school I decided didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class, and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school, and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot-court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits — I only needed 123 credits. And I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like Frank.
It turned out that Biden did not receive a full academic scholarship, but a half scholarship based on financial need. He did not end up in the top half of his class, but near the very bottom. There is no record of him winning the moot court competition. He did not receive the outstanding student award at the University of Delaware. And he graduated with only one degree.
Worse, a release of his academic records showed that Biden had plagiarized five pages of a law review article.
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Compared to...
— The Doctor (@TennantRob) April 17, 2020
pic.twitter.com/1BZhJftemy
Oh, and he plagiarized Robert F. Kennedy’s speeches as well. At the time, Biden said all of these acts of plagiarism were unintentional. One time, maybe—but with these multiple trip-ups—please. And this isn’t anything new.
What’s interesting about the Biden-Kinnock connection is that both men could share somewhat similar political situations. Biden is facing a vocal and rapidly ascending far-left wing of his party and dealing with how to placate them. Kinnock was deal the task with trying to more or less purge those elements from the Labour Party after it was clear that the party had gone too far towards Karl Marx which led to disastrous results in the 1983 general election. It was excellent for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, however. Kinnock was able to purge Labour of its Leninist rabble and in 1992, was projected to win the general election. Instead, the Conservative Party received the most votes ever for a British general election.
Over here, every poll and liberal news outlet is saying Biden is ahead, though the ground game in some of these key states is non-existent, which is making local Democrats worried, as they warn that the race, like in Michigan, could be a lot closer than polls suggest.
Maybe that could be one thing Biden and Kinnock share besides an embarrasing flap over campaign speeches. They were both projected to win...until they didn't.
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