Former vice president and 2020 Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden has a plagiarism scandal on his hands.
Again.
And amazingly enough this time, a few in the news media have decided abruptly that passing off other people's work as your own is ... eh, not such a big deal. In fact, they say, it is an excusable, reasonable action. Well, as long as you're not a Republican.
Politico magazine’s Michael Grunwald, for example, said this week in the most egregious attempt to downplay the vice president’s latest plagiarism scandal: “We're supposed to be mad at Biden because he copied a few lines of his climate plan from environmental groups? That's not ‘plagiarism.’ That's ‘agreeing.’”
We're supposed to be mad at Biden because he copied a few lines of his climate plan from environmental groups? That's not "plagiarism." That's "agreeing." "https://t.co/E2lR2oOuFB
— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) June 4, 2019
This same Politico senior writer once understood that plagiarism is indeed condemnable behavior. I am sure that it is just coincidence that his apparent evolution on the matter coincides with allegations being brought against a Democratic candidate.
At CNN, anchor Alisyn Camerota offered a similar defense of Biden, saying Wednesday morning, “don't you go to the experts, to the experts' website, and lift some of their terminology?"
Speaking for the rest of the world that understands the proper definition of the word “plagiarism,” Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green responded, “No, no, you cite where you get your information from otherwise it's plagiarism. That's what got him into trouble in the first place.”
In the world of partisan commentary, there have been similar attempts to downplay the Biden plagiarism scandal.
The former vice president’s campaign team is scrambling this week to explain why his climate proposal appeared to plagiarize from environmental groups, including the Blue Green Alliance and the Carbon Capture Coalition. You would think that the candidate whose first attempt to run for president in 1988 was ruined by a plagiarism scandal would send a message down the line for all staffers to be extremely careful about lifting other people's work unattributed. But you would be wrong.
And on Wednesday, Biden's campaign was again nailed for plagiarizing on the education issue as well.
I am not sure which is more fascinating: That Biden has been caught again in plagiarism scandals or that there are people in the press seriously suggesting that theft, in this case, is not so bad.