Time Machine: Joe Biden tells all

October 10, 2008: Back from the future, we report what the candidates will say next.

 

Time Machine: Sen. Biden, in 1987, you plagiarized remarks from the then-leader of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, even falsely claiming that your father was a miner. Should this damage your credibility?

 

Biden: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. Whatever.

 

Time Machine: You plagiarized in college. The American Spectator says you plagiarized Bobby Kennedy too. Will it harm your campaign?

 

Biden: A house divided against itself cannot stand. But I have a dream. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

 

Time Machine: Yes, but what is the content of your character?

 

Biden: When I was a little-bitty baby, my momma would rock me in my cradle in them old cotton fields back home. But today, all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ Or South Ossetia. That sort of thing.

 

Time Machine: Senator, the American Congress, the press and the public have been intentionally lied into war by this administration. How can we trust you?

 

Biden:   As I always say of the White House, the buck stops here. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal, and we don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if we do, we’ve got the guns, we’ve got the men, and we’ve got the money, too.

 

Time Machine: We are asking about integrity. How can voters know the real Joe Biden?

 

Biden: Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth and taste. Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. Oh yeah. Ah, what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. Oh yeah.

 

Time Machine: Precisely. How can you recover integrity this late in the campaign?

 

Biden: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall defend our island, whatever the costs. We shall fight them on the beaches…

 

Time Machine: Sorry to interrupt, but are your opponents unfair, charging plagiarism yet again, years later?

 

Biden: Yes, it is a kind of double jeopardy. Indeed, welcome back to Double Jeopardy and I’m your host, Alex Trebek. Sorry, Joe Biden. Slip of the tongue.

 

Time Machine: So what do you say to these critics?

 

Biden: That is the question, whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles. So, shoot if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag, she said.

 

Time Machine: So it’s upsetting?

 

Biden: I wanna scream, I want you all to know. I know I’m running but my feets’ too slow. Young man’s rhythm’s got a hold of me, too. I got a Rocking Pneumonia an’ the Boogie-Woogie…

 

Time Machine: Look, what of your opponent, Governor Palin, who seems full of, um, straight-shooting integrity?

 

Biden: As I always said, even when Sen. Obama asked me my opinion of Hillary as his running mate: no woman no cry, no woman no cry.

 

S J Masty, a former Washington speechwriter, is an international communication consultant based in London.