Although last October 2007, the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), chaired by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, had voted 17-4 to submit the UNCLOS to a floor vote for ratification, the SFRC failed to satisfy many Americans’ demands to convene full, impartial and transparent open public hearings.See Ken Timmerman, Senate Refuses Debate on Controversial Treaty, Newsmax.com (Sept. 27, 2007) at: http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Sea_treaty/2007/09/26/36021.html . "Officially known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, opponents are referring to it more simply as the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST. What’s got them most riled up is the fact that neither the Bush White House, nor the Treaty’s supporters in the United States Senate, appear willing to have a forthright, honest, and full debate. 'They’re trying to ram this thing through in the dead of night,' said former Reagan administration Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, who now heads the conservative Center for Security Policy. On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relationship Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, will hold its first hearing on the controversial Treaty. A bevy of senior Bush administration officials will all testify in favor of the Treaty. But not a single voice in opposition will be heard. 'Biden brushed us off with a form letter,' says Cliff Kincaid, an anti-United Nations activist who has teamed together with Gaffney and other conservatives into an ad hoc coalition to oppose the treaty. Thursday’s hearing 'is just a stunt by Biden to get mileage for his presidential campaign,' he told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. “And the Bush administration is being dragged along for the show.”
Indeed, what actually transpired following such 'pushback' were perfunctory UNCLOS ratification hearings, with administration officials and treaty proponents dominating much of the ‘air time’ and their obscurantist testimonies receiving the most minimal of cross-examinations. In addition, none of the other committees possessing oversight jurisdiction, either in the Senate or the House of Representatives, called for or conducted their own such investigations. See Colby Itkowitz, Senate Panel Approves Law of the Sea Treaty, CQ TODAY – FOREIGN POLICY (Oct. 31, 2007), ITSSD Journal on the UN Law of the Sea Convention at: http://itssdjournalunclos-lost.blogspot.com/2008/01/senate-panel-approves-law-of-sea-treaty.html . "'Do we join a treaty that establishes a framework to advance the rule of law on the oceans?” Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr., D-Del., asked. “Or do we remain on the outside, to the detriment of our national interests?' The Bush administration strongly supports Senate passage of the treaty. Biden said the president told him it was one of his foremost foreign policy priorities. The treaty also has the backing of the U.S. military, intelligence agencies and business and environmental groups."
Due to Americans' dissatisfaction with the SFRC's (and Senator Biden's) lackluster performance, the Senate Majority has since been unable to secure enough votes to ensure the treaty’s ratification. Consequently, the U.S. UNCLOS ratification process remains, at least for the time being, frozen in limbo.
Arguably, had the Congress undertaken a due diligence review befitting its constitutional obligation to provide all Americans with due process of law, it would have been able to discover the treaty’s numerous environmental regulatory, enforcement and revenue-raising provisions pursuant to which new imposts could adversely affect the general public. Given the sheer length of the UNCLOS (over 200 pages) and the multiple subject matters it covers, (and thus the resulting complexity), reasonable citizens are therefore left to wonder whether ‘wisdom’ is served at this time and place and by this Congress, without considering the true amount of work that would be required to thoroughly vet what is perhaps the largest environmental regulatory treaty in the world.
Senator and now Democratic Candidate for Vice President Joe Biden supports greater U.S. participation in United Nations multilateral environmental treaties that would impose legal obligations on the United States government to incorporate European Union-style rules (e.g., the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE) that are economically costly and nonscience-based, into federal legislation and administrative agency regulations to which ALL American businesses and consumers would be subject. As noted on the Biden for President/Vice President website (See Delware's Joe Biden, at: http://www.joebiden.com/home.php/issues/display/environmental_protection/)
"Joe Biden’s Plan For Passing On A Cleaner, Greener World To Our Children Focus on Climate Change" - "Joe Biden is continuing his strong environmental record by leading the effort to pass the most aggressive bill in the Senate to reverse global warming -- the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. The Act would limit greenhouse gas emissions and help avert the major problems warming of our planet could cause – such as altering growing seasons; redistributing natural resources; and lifting sea levels. Lead the World Forward - Global warming requires a global solution. Joe Biden believes the US must take a leadership role in international climate treaty negotiations, and make it a top priority. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he wrote a bipartisan resolution directing the President to return to international negotiations and reclaim a leadership role in the fight against global warming. If we don’t engage countries like China – which is building one new coal-fired power plant a week – we will not solve the global warming crisis."
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http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=213&sid=1465340
Choice of Biden as VP Candidate Praised Overseas
By Arthur Max
Associated Press
August 23, 2008
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - From confronting Russia to dealing with climate change, Barak Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate Saturday was seen abroad as adding weight and depth to the foreign policy of a potential Obama administration.
European analysts said the crisis in the Caucasus provided an appropriate backdrop to Biden's nomination.
In Accra, experts attending a U.N. climate change convention said Obama was sending a strong signal of change on what many see as a foreign policy debacle by the outgoing Bush administration regarding the battle against global warming.
"Biden owes his selection to (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin," said French political analyst Dominique Moisi. "Russia's invasion of Georgia reinforced the American worry about international tensions." The choice of the foreign affairs veteran was intended to reassure the electorate concerned about Obama's lack of credentials, Moisi said.
In Britain, the North America editor for the British Broadcasting Corp., Justin Webb, said Biden was "Vladimir Putin's contribution to American politics - he is a necessary antidote to the Obama lack of worldly wisdom, which before Georgia was a bit academic to most Americans."
Webb said Republican presidential candidate John McCain had acquitted himself well during the Russian invasion of Georgia this month. McCain "took the 3 a.m. call. Obama needs a pal who can do the same," Webb wrote in his blog.
In Germany, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats, Eckart von Klaeden, said Biden was "an exceptionally good decision, which shows how Obama is trying to organize all elements of the Democratic party behind him."
Biden's nomination created a buzz at the U.N. conference in Accra, where delegates from 160 countries were working on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty regulating carbon emissions renounced by President Bush shortly after taking office in 2000.
The choice of Biden "is a good signal for these talks," said Angela Anderson, director of the Global Warming Campaign for the PEW environmental group. "I'm thrilled."
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted climate change legislation as long as 20 years ago, and is an aggressive supporter of domestic and international efforts to rein in emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
"The easiest and fastest way to demonstrate a change of foreign policy would be on climate change," said David Doniger, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Biden and the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, both have sent top congressional staff to the latest series of climate negotiations. The aides, James Greene and Mark Helmke, are to report on the talks to the committee at the end of the year and make recommendations for the next administration.
"This treaty is going to be so complex that the Senate could not give its advice and consent" without a thorough briefing, Helmke, Lugar's aide, said on the conference sidelines.
Helmke said the president-elect, whether Obama or McCain, may send a high-level representative to the next round of talks in December, which takes place in Poland just a few weeks after the U.S. election and seven weeks before the inauguration.
Greene, Biden's aide, declined to comment on the day of his boss's nomination.
But Helmke said it was possible that Biden could take a leading role in the negotiations next year, matching the task of former Vice President Al Gore in capping the Kyoto negotiations a decade ago.
___
AP correspondents Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Jamey Keaten in Paris and Raphael G. Satter in Paris contributed to this report.
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EUROBAMA'S SOUND JUDGMENT & BOLSTERED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS/FOREIGN POLICY CREDENTIALS...????
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e0b42753-0d7e-4be0-9b6b-d4a626e8d4e9
That's the Ticket! - Why loquacious Delaware Senator Joe Biden is a Terrific Vice-presidential Pick for Barack Obama
by Jonathan Cohn
The New Republic
Post Date Saturday, August 23, 2008
It's a great pick! He connects with blue-collar voters and reassures voters worried about Barack Obama's foreign policy inexperience.
It's a lousy pick! He's prone to gaffes and, as a senior member of the Senate, steps on the message of change.In the next few days, pundits will be obsessing over the political impact of putting Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. But the more important questions are the more tangible ones. Is Biden qualified to serve as an advisor to the president and, in an emergency, his stand-in?
What does this selection tells us about the way Obama makes decisions?
[EUROBAMA WAS RECENTLY QUOTED DURING THE SADDLEBACK CHURCH PUBLIC FORUM THAT TOOK PLACE IN LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA, AS CRITICIZING THE SELECTION OF CLARENCE THOMAS AS U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. WHEN ASKED WHICH SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HE WOULD NOT HAVE NOMINATED, EUROBAMA ANSWERED: "I WOULD NOT HAVE NOMINATED CLARENCE THOMAS. I DON'T THINK THAT HE...WAS A STRONG ENOUGH JURIST OR LEGAL THINKER AT THE TIME FOR THAT ELEVATION. SETTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT I PROFOUNDLY DISAGREE WITH HIS INTERPRETATION OF A LOT OF THE CONSTITUTION." See Jim Meyers, Obama: Clarence Thomas Unfit for Supreme Court, Jacksonville Forum (Aug. 18, 2008) at: http://www.topix.com/forum/city/jacksonville-fl/TI5L03OUTI8GR968U . ]
[HOWEVER, ACCORDING TO JUSTICE THOMAS' FORMER LAW CLERK WENDY E. LONG, CURRENTLY COUNSEL TO THE JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION NETWORK, "OBAMA STARTED TO SAY THAT JUSTICE THOMAS DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH 'EXPERIENCE' FOR THE SUPREME COURT. IN MID-SENTENCE, WHEN OBAMA REALIZED THAT HE HIMSELF HAS FAR LESS EXPERIENCE FOR THE PRESIDENCY THAN JUSTICE THOMAS HAD FOR THE COURT IN 1991, HE SHIFTED AND SAID JUSTICE THOMAS 'WAS NOT A STRONG ENOUGH JURIST OR LEGAL THINKER AT THE TIME"...THIS IS ALL REMINISCENT OF (SENATE MAJORITY LEADER) HARRY REID'S COMMENT SEVERAL YEARS AGO THAT JUSTICE THOMAS WAS 'AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THE COURT' AND THIS HIS OPINIONS 'WERE POORLY WRITTEN'. REID WAS EXPOSED AS THE IGNORAMUS THEN, AND THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS ASKED HIM TO STOP USING 'STEREOTYPES AND CARICATURES'"...REID IS AMONG SEVERAL CRITICS WHO HAVE CALLED THOMAS' WRITTEN OPINIONS 'LIGHTWEIGHT' AND SUGGESTED THAT HE WANTS TO ABANDON THE PRINCIPLE OF 'STARE DECISIS' - STANDING BY PRECEDENT - AND REINVENT THE WHEEL WITH EVERY CASE." “'REASONABLE SUPREME COURT OBSERVERS OF ALL POLITICAL STRIPES, WHO DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH JUSTICE THOMAS' JURISPRUDENCE, CONSIDER HIS WORK TO BE SCHOLARLY AND OF TOP QUALITY. AND YET SENATOR OBAMA IS, SADLY, UNABLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE EVEN THAT MUCH ABOUT AN INTELLIGENT, WONDERFUL AND KIND MAND WHO BROKE RACIAL BARRIERS TO RISE TO THE VERY TOP OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION', SAID HELGI WALKER, A FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT BUSH AND FORMER LAW CLER FOR THOMAS." See: Conservatives Slam Obama’s Answer About Supreme Court Justices at Saddleback Forum, FOXNews.com (Aug. 18, 2008) at: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/18/conservatives-slam-obamas-answer-about-supreme-court-justices-at-saddleback-forum/ ].
[DESPITE ALL OF THIS, EUROBAMA NOMINATES U.S. DELAWARE SENATOR JOE BIDEN AS HIS VICE PRESIDENT, WHOM BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE LONG REFERRED TO AS AN 'INTELLECTUAL LIGHTWEIGHT'. EVEN THE TRANSATLANTIC BLOGOSPHERE IS WELL ACQUAINTED WITH 'LIGHTWEIGHT JOE'S' FALLIBILITIES: "HE'S THE SORT OF MAN I'VE MET MANY A TIE IN IRISH PUBS. BIDEN WIL TELL YOU, AT SOME LENGTH FOR SURE, ALL ABOUT HIS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE, HOW HE'S ON THE CUSP OF GREATNESS JUST WAITING FOR THAT LAST PIECE TO FALL NEATLY INTO PLACE. THE FACT THAT - STUBBORNLY - IT HAS NEVER YET DONE SO DETERS HIM NOT A BIT...YOU CAN PICTURE HIM PROPPING UP ONE END OF THE BAR FOR THIRTY YEARS; LONG ENOUGH FOR ALL TO BE FORGIVEN, ALL ANCIENT BATTLES AND BLUNDERS FORGOTTEN AS WE GROW OLDER, MORE CHARITABLE, MORE SENTIMENTAL. BIDEN'S THE SORT OF FELLOW WHO'LL MAKE A WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENT ABOUT YOUR WIFE. TO YOUR FACE. ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. BUT HE'LL DO SO IN SUCH A GUILELESS FASHION FREE FROM ANY HINT OF MALICE THAT, DASH IT AND ALMOST HALF DESPITE YOURSELF, YOU FORGIVE THE SILLY OLD FOOL. HE WAS, YOU REALIZE, PROBABLY TRYING TO AY SOMETHING COMPLEMENTARY. HECK, EVEN HIS 1988 DISGRACE WAS SO PREPOSTEROUS - PLAGIARISING NEIL BLEEDIN' KINNOCK! - THAT IT SEEMS UTTERLY ARTLESS. SO BIZARRE THERE HAD TO BE AN INNOCENT, BRAIN-FRYING EXPLANATING FOR IT.
DESPITE ALL THOSE YEARS IN WASHINGTON, THERE'S AN ENDEARING CHILD-LIKE QUALITY TO BIDEN. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, OBSERVING BIDEN IN FULL FLOW IS A GLORIOUS SIGHT; IT'S LIKE WATCHING A LABRADOR BOUND AFTER A BOUNCING BALL EVEN THOUGH, BEING A PUPPY, IT DOESN'T QUITE HAVE THE CO-ORDINATION TO GRAB THE BALL CLEANLY. INSTEAD THERE'S A FRENZY OF YELPING DELIGHT AS THE AS THE BALL CARROMS AROUND THE YARD, ALWAYS TANTALISINGLY JUST OUT OF REACH..." See Megan McArdle, A Man You Don't Meet Every Day, The Atlantic.com (Aug. 24, 2008) at: http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/a_man_you_dont_meet_every_day.php ]. The answer to the first question is unambiguously "yes." Start with the resume: Biden first came to the Senate in 1973, after a brief career in local government. He rose through ranks, eventually becoming chairman of the judiciary committee, a position he occupied from 1987 through 1995. In 1997, he became ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations a Committee, which he chairs today. As a result of this experience, Biden can boast of real policy expertise--and genuine accomplishments. [??] Chief among them are the Violence Against Women's Act, which he sponsored and eventually shepherded to passage as part of the 1994 crime bill, and American intervention in the Balkans, for which he was an early and influential advocate.
Biden's history of public service has its blemishes, too. After masterminding the defeat of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987, he famously botched the hearings for Clarence Thomas, presiding over a spectacle that somehow managed both to confirm a deeply conservative judge while making himself, and many liberals, seem insensitive to the concerns of women. Biden also voted for the Iraq War. He did so more reluctantly than some other Democrats, openly decrying President Bush's doctrine of preemption and promoting (with Republican Senator Richard Lugar) a measure that would have authorized war only to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. But when that effort failed, Biden voted for the final, broader resolution--thereby breaking with more prescient colleagues like Carl Levin and Jack Reed, who thought Bush hadn't made the case for war. Most recently, Biden supported the strongly anti-consumer 2005 bankruptcy law, although that was presumably a typical act of local political boosterism. (Delaware is home to the credit card industry.)
For many Washington insiders, it's Biden's words--not his votes--that deserve scrutiny. His promising 1988 presidential bid ended quickly following revelations he'd used quotes from other famous politicians, without attribution, and that he had a habit of exaggerating his past exploits. [!!] And while those transgressions are old news, might a general election campaign bring forth new ones? It's a legitimate worry. The Obama campaign doesn't need those sorts of distractions--not now and not for the next four years, should the Democrats win in November.
And yet as politically unfortunate as those instances have been, the more important question is what they reveal about Biden's character and leadership qualities. I have no special reporting insights here, but the consensus that emerges from past writings about him--including the descriptions in Battle for Justice, Ethan Bronner's account of the Bork hearings--is that Biden suffered from an acute case of intellectual insecurity. The boasts, in this view, reflected Biden's constant fear that he would be perceived as a lightweight, either because of his (then) youth or lack of top intellectual credentials. (He graduated from the University of Delaware and, later, Syracuse Law School.) Biden is older now. Washington considers him, legitimately, an elder statesman. One can imagine--or at least hope--that the insecurity has waned over time.
And even if it hasn't, it's important to put this character flaw in context. Biden may have stretched the truth about his own accomplishments, but that's a far lesser sin--at least in my book--than calculating every move based on political expediency or using high office to gain personal wealth. And there's no sign that Biden has ever been prone to these sorts of problems. On the contrary, his political history suggests real courage on behalf of important, but controversial, causes. Biden had to fight for both VAWA and the Balkans intervention. As for using office to get rich, Biden's record looks to be squeaky clean. Based on public disclosure forms, he is the least wealthy member of the U.S. Senate. It's a reflection of his working-class roots--and the everyman sensibility that remains one of his most endearing characteristics. But it's also a tribute to Biden's virtue. Such a long tenure in office, surely, has presented ample opportunities for graft and shady dealings.
So Biden is not just qualified for the job. He is very qualified for the job. He can help Obama govern; should the unthinkable happen, he would make a capable and trustworthy commander-in-chief himself. But what does this tell us about Obama and how he makes decisions?
Political considerations surely played a major role in Obama's thinking. If you believe what you read, he had higher regard for--and a closer relationship with--several other contenders, including Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed. But voters might have rejected a ticket with Kaine or Sebelius, concluding it lacked sufficient experience in national and international politics. Reed, an Army veteran and highly respected lawmaker, didn't have that problem. But he's notoriously dull.
But it's unlikely politics were Obama primary motivation. If they had been, Obama might well have selected Evan Bayh, whose presence on the ticket would have put Indiana into play and--as a result--reshaped the electoral map. (Among other things, it would have drained McCain's financing, by forcing him to advertise in the expensive Chicago television market.) But Bayh, although a perfectly respectable senator, is not exactly a heavyweight. He claims no policy area as expertise; he has no major law or initiative that he can claim as an accomplishment. There's nothing terribly wrong with Bayh but there's nothing terribly right with him, either. It's been said that Bayh was the "safe" candidate--and, as a political matter, that's true. But given his less than sterling record, putting him a heartbeat away from the presidency would have actually been a little risky.
Biden's choice presents real risks for Obama, too--and not just political. Biden can be difficult. He speaks his mind, even when he has nothing nice to say. But if that sometimes makes conversations uncomfortable, it also makes them valuable. Obama has always said he didn't want a "yes" man--that he wanted a vice president who would challenge him intellectually and promote a vigorous debate about policy decisions. It's precisely the sort of environment that the current White House lacks. By choosing Biden, Obama tells us he's serious about that change.
One other, perhaps less appreciated, virtue of the Biden choice is what it says about Obama philosophically. Biden can be counted upon to play the role of house dissenter and skeptic. But he does so as somebody whose fealty to the basic values of the Democratic Party is not in doubt. On a wide range of issues, from economics to the courts to national security, Biden has compiled a record that would please the majority of progressives. His rating from Americans for Democratic Action is a perfect 100, just like Obama's. He scores well among other liberal groups, too.
Conservatives will blast this record, just as surely as liberals will (or should) celebrate it. But one of the virtues of having Biden as the vice presidential nominee is that he won't take those kinds of attacks lightly. He'll fight back. He'll remind people, rightly, that being a liberal Democrat means raising the minimum wage, making sure everybody has affordable health care, providing strong public schools, and protecting human rights. Then, he'll ask why conservative Republicans don't want the same things. That's exactly the kind of political debate this country needs. By picking Biden as a running mate, Obama has signaled that he welcomes this argument--and intends, finally, to win it.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic and the author of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis--And the People Who Paid the Price.
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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D61139F930A25752C0A96E948260
Biden Gives Kinnock Copy of His Speeches
REUTERS
Published: January 13, 1988
LEAD: Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., meeting Neil Kinnock for the first time, today presented the Labor Party leader with a bound copy of the Senator's speeches and told reporters: ''I told him he was welcome to use them whenever he liked, with or without attribution.''
[NOW, IS THIS AN EXAMPLE OF THE GOOD JUDGMENT AND INTELLECTUAL HEFT & HONESTY TO WHICH THE NEW EUROBAMA PRESIDENTIAL TICKET ASPIRES?]
[DID NOT 'LIGHTWEIGHT JOE' UNDERSTAND HOW HE WOULD BE PERCEIVED BY NEIL KINNOCK, LET ALONE BY THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC, AFTER HE PRESENTED THE UK LABOR PARTY LEADER WITH A COPY OF HIS SPEECHES CONTAINING THE PLAGIARIZED PASSAGES???]
[BUT THEN, AGAIN, WASN'T EUROBAMA HIMSELF ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM?? See Alex Spillius, Hillary Clinton Accuses Obama of Plagiarism, UK Telegraph (Feb. 26, 2008) at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1579074/Hillary-Clinton-accuses-Obama-of-plagiarism.html . "[Obama]...has been forced into the unwelcome distraction of fighting off charges from Mrs Clinton's camp that he lacks credibility after he used a short passage from a speech by his friend Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, nearly verbatim and without attribution. Howard Wolfson, Mrs Clinton's chief spokesman, said: "Senator Obama's campaign is largely premised on the strength of his rhetoric and his promises, because he doesn't have a long record in public life. When the origin of his oratory is called into question, it raises questions about his overall candidacy." See also, Clinton Camp Accuses Obama Of Plagiarism, US News & World Reports Political Bulletin (Feb. 19, 2008) at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080219.htm . "The Financial Times reports, 'In an attack designed to remind people of Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 1988 presidential campaign after his uncredited use of passages from Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour party opposition in the UK, the Clinton campaign said it raised 'fundamental questions' about the integrity of Mr Obama's campaign.' The Los Angeles Times reports that Clinton, 'in response to a question from reporters on her campaign plane, added her voice to her staff's criticism of Obama. 'If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words,' she said. 'That's what I think.'"].
[See Edward Luce, Clinton in a War Over Words With Obama, Financial Times (Feb. 18, 2008) at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e7744382-de4e-11dc-9de3-0000779fd2ac.html . "On Monday the Obama camp admitted that Mr Obama had used the same language as Mr Patrick in a speech in Wisconsin on Saturday in a passage designed to rebut the allegation that his campaign consisted of poetic phrases but little else. They said Mr Patrick and Mr Obama were friends who often “riffed off each other’s speeches”. 'Don’t tell me words don’t matter,' Mr Obama said in the passage borrowed from Mr Patrick. 'I have a dream – just words? We hold these truths to be self-evident – just words? We have nothing to fear but fear itself – just words?'”].
Mr. Biden dropped out of the Democratic Presidential race last September after admitting that he had used speeches by Mr. Kinnock and other politicians without attribution, and after published reports that he had plagiarized while in law school.
The Delaware Democrat, who met Mr. Kinnock at the House of Commons, said the Welsh politician ''did not give me any more ideas for speeches, nor I him.''
Mr. Biden, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was on a two-day visit of Britain as part of a tour to consult allies on the treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
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http://bigheaddc.com/2008/02/18/katrina-vanden-heuvel-plagiarism-not-an-issue/
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Plagiarism Not An Issue
Bighead DC
Feb. 18, 2008
Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation magazine, told Chris Matthews today on Hardball that Sen. Barack Obama’s plagiarism scandal should not have been covered on the program because, she feels, it doesn’t matter to the common person. An incredulous Matthews responded that she should ask Sen. Joe Biden whether these kind of issues matter — a reference to Biden being forced to quit his bid for the presidency in 1987 after he plagiarised a speech. Pat Buchanan, a guest on the show, said that he felt this was a “bad day” for Obama, and that his character will likely be called into question more often now in the campaign.
See also Hardball: Plagiarism or Not?, Hardball at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMhjDbrtyg
[WHAT KIND OF EXAMPLE DOES THIS PROVIDE FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRY GOVERNMENTS AND INDUSTRIES THAT SYSTEMATICALLY STEAL U.S. COPYRIGHTS, PATENTS and TRADESECRETS??? THESE POLITICIANS AND COMMENTATORS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES, ESPECIALLY UNINFORMED AND ARROGANT KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL. DEAR MS. VANDEN HEUVEL, PLAGIARISM, LIKE COPYRIGHT and PATENT INFRINGEMENT, ARE REAL ISSUES THAT MATTER TO COMMON PEOPLE WHO OWN BUSINESSES, and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSETS!! See: ITSSD Journal on Intellectual Property Rights, at: http://itssdinternationaliprights.blogspot.com/ ].
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