Yeah, the joke is a clear rip-off -- like half of the jokes at the St. Patrick's Day breakfast every year.
Check this link for Senate President Travaglini telling one of the oldest jokes in the book, slightly modified:
www.telegram.com/.../article
Then there’s state Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. The Boston Democrat told a zinger about Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all facing a terrorist firing squad.
To divert attention so he could scamper away, Carter yelled “tsunami” when he went before the guns, Travaglini joked.
Clinton followed suit and screamed “tornado” before running away.
“Now Bush, he’s smart. He’s going to figure this all out,” said Travaglini, a Boston Democrat.
When Bush got in front of the guns, Travaglini said, the president yelled “fire.”
That joke is as old as it gets. My point is this. If a candidate plagiarizes substantive stuff (like Biden did in 1988) and real chunks of speeches, then it's bad news. Adapting jokes is par-for-the-course and hardly a "Biden moment" - heck, most of Deval Patrick's policy positions are "Biden moments" of policy agenda pieces from Health Care for All, MassPIRG, Cape Wind, and other organizations...