May 11, 2006

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

Calls 40 similar passages ‘an honest mistake’

Sen. Joseph Biden's road to the White House became a little bumpier today as the Delaware Democrat admitted copying significant chunks of his standard stump speech from the young adult novel, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” by Kaavya Viswanathan.

Mr. Biden made the admission after several prominent bloggers noted the similarities between over 40 passages of Mr. Biden's speech and the book by Ms. Viswanathan, who herself has been accused of plagiarizing from no fewer than three other novels.

At a campaign stop in New Hampshire today, Sen. Biden acknowledged that his stump speech was "influenced" by Ms. Viswanathan's book but called the similarities between passages "an honest mistake."

"One of the books that I have been reading while on the campaign trail is ‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,’" Mr. Biden said. "I guess that in my mind I got confused about what sections of my speech were written by me and which were written by Kaavya Viswanathan—or whoever actually wrote them."

But Mr. Biden's plagiarism woes were far from over, as critics pointed out that Mr. Biden's signature campaign slogan, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard," is strikingly similar to the lyric of a 2004 song by the pop star Kelis.

Still, Mr. Biden was unrepentant: "Similarities aside, I stand by my statement—my milkshake does in fact bring all the boys to the yard."

Elsewhere, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) proposed a bill, which would provide free towing for all members of the Kennedy clan, tentatively called No Car Left Behind.

For more from Andy Borowitz go to www.borowitzreport.com. Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humor columnist whose work can be found in Newsweek and other publications.