Joseph Biden Plagiarism Scandal

Here is the background info on Joseph Biden's plagiarism "scandal" from his presidential campaign 20 years ago, in which he was accused of plagiarizing this professor in a few passages back when he was a student, which was revealed in the race he ultimately lost to Mike Dukakis (and THAT sure worked out well.) This Biden Plagiarism Scandal is not really much of a scandal at all, and should be a non-issue.

Joseph Biden Plagiarism Scandal
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Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., answering plagiarism charges to salvage his Presidential campaign, today acknowledged ''a mistake'' in his youth, when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., fighting to salvage his Presidential campaign, today acknowledged ''a mistake'' in his youth, when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school.

Mr. Biden insisted, however, that he had done nothing ''malevolent,'' that he had simply misunderstood the need to cite sources carefully. And he asserted that another controversy, concerning recent reports of his using material from others' speeches without attribution, was ''much ado about nothing.''

Mr. Biden, the 44-year-old Delaware Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, addressed these issues at the Capitol in a morning news conference he had called expressly for that purpose. The news conference was held just before he presided over the third day of hearings on the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court.

To buttress his assertions of sincerity and openness, Mr. Biden released a 65-page file, obtained by the Senator from the Syracuse University College of Law, that he said contained all the records of his years there. It disclosed relatively poor grades in college and law school, mixed evaluations from teachers and details of the plagiarism.

Both the current dean of the law school and Mr. Biden's professor today played down the incident of plagiarism. [ Page A23. ] Brushing aside any suggestion that he might be forced to withdraw from the Presidential race, Mr. Biden declared at the news conference, ''I'm in the race to stay, I'm in the race to win, and here I come.'' Blames Rivals

Mr. Biden also suggested that the recent damaging information about him had originated with other campaigns, which he did not identify, and that it had emerged now because he was enjoying a chance in the limelight with the Bork hearings.