Working in a word mine
Joe Biden addresses the Democratic convention tonight as Barack Obama's running mate. Senator Biden's 1988 candidacy for the Democratic nomination collapsed as the result of a plagiarism scandal on which few observers have reflected since his selection. Rutgers history professor David Greenberg was the villain of my Standard column "Wielding the hatchet" as well as my subsequent post "Professor Greenberg regrets," but he does a good job recounting Biden's plagiarism fiasco in "The write stuff?" Greenberg recalls:
Biden's downfall began when his aides alerted him to a videotape of the British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who had run unsuccessfully against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The tape showed Kinnock delivering a powerful speech about his rise from humble roots. Taken...
