In 1987, Dukakis staffer John Sasso sank the presidential aspirations of Joe Biden by distributing a videotape demonstrating that Biden had plaigarized parts of speeches. Dukakis fired Sasso for his troubles, although most observers today regard this as standard opposition research rather than a dirty trick.
Today’s New York Sun reports that Sasso’s candidate, John Kerry, stands accused of plaigarizing campaign materials and even parts of the 1997 book “The New War” that he used to burnish his image as a deep thinker, chunks of which bear strong resemblances to uncredited newspaper and magazine articles. Unlike in 1987, the charge is not likely to do much damage to Kerry – plaigarism scarcely seems to dent scholars these days, let alone politicians – and maybe it’s of a piece with the by-now well-known fact that Kerry’s idol, John F. Kennedy, had ghostwriters draft large sections of his award-winning book Profiles in Courage. But the irony should not be lost, at least.