Those aren’t Biden’s exact words, P.J. O’Rourke once commented while paraphrasing the future Vice President, but, he added, it didn’t matter because Joe doesn’t use his own words either. O’Rourke was referring to the time Biden had, notoriously, copied part of a speech by Neil Kinnock.
Plagiarism is fairly common in politics. In 2008, there was an example in Canada:
Stephen Harper has dismissed a second round of allegations that he plagiarized parts of an old speech — this one delivered by a former premier.
The Liberals on Friday accused the federal Conservative leader of stealing ideas from a speech given more than five years ago by former Ontario premier Mike Harris.
The allegations came the same week a Harper staffer resigned for copying sections of a 2003 speech delivered by former Australian prime minister John Howard.
“I think, in the other case, it was clear that large portions of [Howard's] speech had been used and not attributed. That, obviously, is not acceptable and I’m very disappointed that that occurred,” Harper said Saturday in Yarmouth, N.S.
“In this case, we’re talking about a couple of sentences of fairly standard political rhetoric,” the federal Conservative leader added.
If you, a couple of years later, happened to see a side-by-side video of Harper’s speech and the John Howard speech it had copied, what would you think? That it was another case of plagiarism, or that it was proof our Lizard Overlords were giving scripts to conservative politicians around the world?
If you’re Craig Murray, it’s the latter. In a post titled The New World Order At Work, he posted this video. He had seen the clip at a site run by someone with the pseudonym “Scunnert Nation” who, in the comments, displayed a perfect conspiratorial mindset. The obvious explanation? Hah! Too easy:
Alfred: “It was Stevie Harper’s speech writer wot plagiarized that brilliant piece of John Howard oratory.”
I hardly think he would come out and admit that the speech had been provided by the US State Department to both parties. Much less damaging politically to suggest a lazy speech writer.
Posted by: Scunnert at May 13, 2010 6:39 PM
With anything like this, we can apply what I’m going to call Feynman’s Razor: it is more likely that Harper’s speech showed the known tendency of politicians to plagiarise each other, rather than the unknown manipulations of an unknown group of global manipulators.
“He had seen the clip at a site run by someone with the pseudonym “Scunnert Nation” who, in the comments, displayed a perfect conspiratorial mindset. The obvious explanation?”
And you believe the obvious explanation is that somehow Harper’s speech writer got hold of a speech made the day before on the other side of the world? That I believe the speech was probably provided to both parties by the US State Department hardly amounts to a conspiracy theory. Harper and Bush were fellow travelers walking in Neo-Con lock step. Do you actually believe that the US, while trying to fabricate the “Coalition of the Willing”, would not try to coordinate what their political allies in foreign countries were saying to ensure everyone stayed on message?
” …it is more likely that Harper’s speech showed the known tendency of politicians to plagiarise each other, rather than the unknown manipulations of an unknown group of global manipulators.”
Neither the manipulations nor the manipulators were unknown and have been exposed in the international media. Where have you been hiding?
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