Biden v McCain, battle of the plagiarists

One person who is unlikely to condemn John McCain for plagiarism – he has been accused of lifting quotes about Georgia from the internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia for a major foreign affairs speech – is Joseph Biden (pictured), the man currently being tipped to become Barack Obama’s running mate. If he were to do so, he'd very quickly be reminded of the incident that led to the collapse of his own presidential bid in 1998.

Biden had been a serious contender for the Democratic nomination when he borrowed, without attribution, passages from a speech given by Neil Kinnock when he was leader of the Labour Party - the famous "Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand years to have been to university?" oration.

With only slight modifications, Biden said: "Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a university?" and then, as with Kinnock, talked about his ancestors "working in the coal mines". This "mistake" resulted in his every public statement being turned over for other cases of potential plagiarism. This proved fatal and led to the Delaware senator dropping out of the race.