"Biden's Fantasy World" is the title of an editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. And indeed, Sen. Joseph Biden did make some factual errors in his recent vice presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin.
However, the WSJ commits at least as many factual errors as Biden did - with the benefit of a full staff and without the pressure of having to make an instant response under bright stage lighting.
The Journal made a total of five accusations against Biden from the debate. Two of them are completely false, and a third is stretched gossamer-thin in a desperate attempt to validate their pre-arranged conclusion.
First, the WSJ says that Biden's claim on Gen. David McKiernan's assessment of the "surge" strategy in Afghanistan was incorrect.
Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.
The Journal, much like the McCain campaign, has forgotten about that pesky Internet thingy. Factcheck.org and CNN both put Biden's claim to the test. CNN summarizes their results thusly.
"Afghanistan is not Iraq," McKiernan said in Washington on Oct. 1. He also said "the word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge.'" He called for a "sustained commitment" leading to a political and not just a military solution.
He said Afghanistan is a "far more complex environment than I ever found in Iraq." The newspaper paraphrased him as citing the country's "unique challenges" — "the mountainous terrain, rural population, poverty, illiteracy, 400 major tribal networks and history of civil war."
The Verdict: True.
Then, the WSJ attacks Biden for allegedly misstating McCain's position on Bosnia.
Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq.
Unfortunately, the Journal fails the smell test on this one too. McCain was initially one of the most vocal Senators against going in to Bosnia. Michael Wines of the New York Times had the story - fifteen years ago. (emphasis mine)
But anyone who wagered that Mr. McCain would favor United States intervention in Bosnia's war would lose his shirt. As President Clinton and lawmakers ponder the prospect of air strikes to counter Serbian aggression or the despatch of thousands of American troops to enforce a cease-fire, Mr. McCain has been sounding the Senate's most persistent and most urgent alarms on the question of involvement in a European war.
And here's McCain, in his own words to the same reporter, voicing some of his objections.
"I think you can draw a parallel to the military challenge in Bosnia with what the Russians faced in Afghanistan," he said. "Even with ground forces and with overwhelming air superiority, they were unable to defeat a motivated, very capable enemy."
Now, Biden did make an error when he claimed that the US and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon (flatly false). Biden also danced along a very thin lawyerly edge when he asserted that Obama never said he'd meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Obama never specifically identified Ahmadinejad as such a leader, and has pointed out that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be the leader of Iran for those purposes. However, PolitiFact did find a number of cases where Obama appears to reference Ahmadinejad as the leader he would meet with.
Right or wrong, the foregoing accusations against Biden are at least on important topics. So, befitting a campaign that McCain topper Rick Davis has already said "is not about issues," you can guess which Biden "gaffe" from the debate was the focus of the McCain camp's postmortem fire.
If you're thinking immaterial, irrelevant AND largely false, you've hit the jackpot that was the "Katie's Restaurant" reference. It was certainly THE reference that the McCain campaign seized upon and peddled in the spin room. So, did Biden give a clearly outdated reference just to be a "phony...Lunchbucket Joe," as the Journal asserts?
Answer: No. Delaware Online's Pulp Culture blog, photos and comments on the subject show that Biden was likely guilty of no more than a name error, as there is a current restaurant AND a Katie's sign at the place where Katie's Restaurant once did business.
Also, Biden said, "All you have to do is to go down Union Street with me in Wilmington and go to Katie's Restaurant..." Well, as it turns out, if you head south (down) Union Street and hang a left on 6th Street, you're only two blocks away from Wings To Go, the restaurant that is now where Katie's once stood.
It is at this point that I do the public service of correcting the final paragraph from the WSJ editorial.
We think the word "lie" is underused in politics today, which is why it's become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we will say the Wall Street Journal was deliberately making events up when its editorial board made these false statements. Since they had the luxury of several days and virtually unlimited research resources, there is no chance they merely misspoke. In any case, Mr. Biden may not know as much about the world as the Journal does, but at least most of what he knows is true.
Meanwhile, the only Palin debate error that is mentioned is her conflation of Gen. George McClellan, the Union's commanding officer during the first years of the Civil War, with Gen. David McKiernan, the commanding officer of US forces in Afghanistan. Apparently, those third-graders at Gladys Woods Elementary lent Gov. Palin their history books as part of her debate preparation.
Let today's editorial - which will doubtlessly be echoed as gospel by other news outlets too lazy and apathetic to actually verify their stories - serve as a cautionary tale, lest we get the false impression that the MSM worm is really turning.