Biden was accused of plagiarism his first year in law school and was cleared. It was a case of not knowing how to properly footnote and cite a law school paper properly. He failed the course; but was allowed to take it again. If it had been a case of deliberate cheating, he would have been expelled or forced to withdraw to avoid being expelled. Biden had no special connections back then. Obviously, he wasn't the best student in the world. Neither was Palin. Biden did earn a Bachelor's degree in four years from one college and a law degree in three years from one law school. It took Palin four colleges (some being community colleges) and six years to earn a Bachelor's degree. Biden is no Obama, president of Harvard Law Review, but then very few are. Obama is neither in his 70s nor has he ever had cancer.

Anyway the law school paper and the failed course became an issue in the 1988 primary where Biden had this habit of juxtaposing his situation with that of British polititian Neil Kinnock. In a speech, Kinnock brought up that both he and his wife were both the first in their families to attend University and pointing out that it was not because they were smarter than the rest of their family just that there was lack of opportunity. Biden basically said the same thing about himself and his wife and their families (not "word for word" as some chose to remember) because it was *also* true for them and he DID credit Kinnock many times when he did make this juxtoposition. Then, one time he didn't and the Dukakis campaign picked up on it and ran with it.