It won’t make a bit of difference, but for the record it’s worth reporting that Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden was again caught stealing another politician’s words.
This time, Canada’s National Post reported, Biden tried to pull a daylight heist from the late Canadian politician Jack Layton.
This is at least the third instance of Biden stealing another’s words and thoughts, which means he is, in the argot of criminal law, a serial or repeat offender.
Unhappily, the Democrat Party does not enforce a three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule for candidates.
The Big Speech
Joey Lightfingers’ latest literary larceny occurred during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, the Post reported.
He included this line: “For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. And light is more powerful than dark.”
“Social media was quick to point out that the words were eerily similar to ones found in a letter Layton wrote before he died in 2011,” the Post reported:
“My friends, love is better than anger,” said Layton in his letter. “Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.”
Biden’s remarks were made two days before the ninth anniversary of Layton’s death.
Sophia Banks, a plant-based chef, tweeted that she was disappointed Biden copied Layton’s comments.
“Jack Layton is trending,” tweeted Banks. “One of Canada’s most beloved politicians. As Biden butchers his dying words left to us.”
And Banks wasn’t the only leftist who knew Biden burgled someone else’s words yet again.
“So very Jack Layton,” tweeted Sandy Hudson of Black Lives Matter.
Then again, the Post noted that Layton channeled the material from a speech by Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s prime minister more than a century ago.
“Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate,” he said. Laurier was trying to build “unity among Canadians during World War I and build connections between English and French-Canadians,” the Post reported.
Amusingly, the Biden campaign purchased a $4,200 anti-plagiarism software program last year after the campaign itself was caught stealing material for the candidate’s education and climate-change proposals.
A Long Rap Sheet
Biden’s political pilfering goes back more than half a century.
In September 1987, the New YorkTimes’s Maureen Dowd reported Biden’s stealing from British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Biden not only cribbed the speech but also added events from Kinnock’s life to the Biden story.
Dowd put the passages down side-by-side:
Kinnock: “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys [his wife] the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?’’
Biden: ‘Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? 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? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?’’
Days later, Biden fessed up to plagiarizing a paper in law school at Syracuse University, where he graduated in 1968. The law-school faculty convicted Biden of using misappropriated material from the Fordham Law Review.
The material in question was “five pages from a published law review article without quotation or attribution,” as the Times reported of the faculty’s conclusion. The faculty wanted Biden “failed in the legal methods course for which he had submitted the 15-page paper,” the Times, reported.
Biden claimed the theft was not “malevolent.”
The revelations ended his run to become his party’s nominee for president in 1988.
Won’t Make a Difference
Biden’s latest conviction for plagiarism won’t make a difference to his supporters or the leftist news media.
If the accusation that Biden sexually abused a former staffer didn’t end his candidacy or affect his reputation with top Democrat women such as running mate Kamala Harris, another accusation of plagiarism certainly won’t.
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
