Rumors, Part 2

Here's the latest:

1. Obama's half-brother living in Kenya on $1 a month. Well, who can be responsible for all their kinfolk? Besides, I bet a dollar goes a long way in Kenya.

2. While visiting the Kenyan school named after him, Obama promised to help them modernize the facilities, but no help has been forthcoming. School principal: "He has not given us one shilling. But we still have hope." Let's be fair. When liberals promise aid, they aren't talking about their own money. Maybe he can get them some U.S. foreign aid once he's president.

3. John McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns. Sounds bad doesn't it? Turns out, the McCains have investment properties as well as 4 homes.

4. Obama's mentor during his teenage years, Frank Marshall Davis, was a member of the Communist Party and liked to have sex with young girls. Well, that's not the Frank Marshall Davis that Obama knew.

5. Joe Biden plagiarized in one of his political speeches. Well, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds:

The real problem with Biden, we were told "is not the alleged sin but the obvious stupidity." Biden hadn't harmed Kinnock by his borrowing nor was Kinnock's commercial all that original itself. As one observer noted, the Kinnock commercial from which Biden took the language was itself rife with images lifted from John F. Kennedy, and even the "thousand generations" language was said to have come from George Lucas' Star Wars. Nor had Biden deceived his audience: few listeners believe that politicians write their own speeches anyway. At worst, said one expert, "Biden purloined piffle." Yet somehow Senator Biden, alone among politicians who had done the same kind of thing, became widely known as a plagiarist because he borrowed the Kinnock language.

As Professor K. R. St. Onge says, "It is typical of plagiarism charges that often the significance of what was used is totally ignored in favor of the fact that it was used." Plagiarism charges call for careful analysis, and involve substantive issues of propriety, of honesty, and of law. Yet the Biden affair suggests (once again) that the Ethics Establishment is poorly suited for such judgments...

6. Joe Biden plagiarized in law school. This might be harder to explain.