Joe Biden likes to pretend that he and Barack Obama are BFFs, and they often have sleepovers with pillow fights and Truth or Dare. However, there’s been very little reason to believe their private relationship is even close to the warm and fuzzy besties that Biden makes them out to be.
In fact, in reply to a 2010 email from Hunter Biden’s laptop to his dad’s personal email account, Joe Biden blasted Obama for having “no grace.” That was in response to Hunter’s suggestion that Obama had plagiarized Joe’s speeches.
The email, dated Sept. 7, 2010, was sent a day after Barack Obama gave a pro-union speech in Milwaukee, Wis. “Interesting language from the President: ‘They (his grandparent) would tell me about seeing their fathers or uncles losing their jobs…how it wasn’t just a loss of a paycheck that stung. It was the blow to their dignity, their sense of self worth,’” Hunter wrote, before asking rhetorically, “Wonder where he got that from?”
“Im surprised he didn’t finish with the long walk up a short flight of stairs. Pretty amazing,” he concluded.
Joe Biden replied, “No grace,” in reference to Obama.
Hilarious email showing Joe and Hunter Biden accuse Barack Obama of plagiarizing. pic.twitter.com/xCjPQVbTUX
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) September 13, 2023
In fairness, Obama’s line did sound eerily familiar to a line from Biden’s 2008 stump speeches, and he does have a history of plagiarizing speeches. During his 2008 campaign, Obama plagiarized former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in a campaign speech.
Related: Barack Obama Could Play a Key Role in Biden Corruption Investigation
That said, Joe Biden is the last person who should criticize anyone about plagiarism. He was accused of plagiarizing a law review article in a paper he wrote during his first year at law school, and his 1988 presidential campaign was thwarted after being accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.
While addressing the Welsh Assembly, Kinnock asked, “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?”
A few months after Kinnock’s speech, Biden gave a speech with nearly identical phrasing.
“Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?”
During the 1987 California Democratic Convention, Biden also lifted a phrase verbatim from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address.
During the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden’s campaign copied Bernie Sanders’ platform and lifted passages from various websites. His speech accepting the Democratic nomination also appeared to have included plagiarized passages. And, on multiple occasions, Joe Biden plagiarized Trump’s COVID response plan by pitching ideas on what to do about the pandemic as his own, even though they’d already been done.
So I’m amused that Joe Biden thought that Obama had “no grace” for plagiarizing him, yet never considered himself above plagiarism.
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