Admin Note: Click-bait title that was debunked by snopes has been changed by Admin after diarist failed to make proper edits.
Yesterday Joe Biden stood up in front of a bunch of people and made up a story. Or, at best, conflated some facts for dramatic effect. So says the Washington Post,
“…interviews with more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders and Biden campaign officials, it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.”
“…the ‘essence’ of his stories was accurate,” Joe Biden insists.
As far back as law school at Syracuse University College of Law, he was called out for plagiarism as reported by Maureen Dowd in 1987,
“Biden acknowledged plagiarizing a law review journal for a paper during law school, and asked school administrators not to be expelled. But Biden also said he made a mistake in the citation process.”
“My intent was not to deceive anyone…For if it were, I would not have been so blatant,’’ Biden said at the time.
He was called out again in 1988,
“During his failed 1988 run, Biden lifted portions of a speech by United Kingdom Labour MP and Margaret Thatcher challenger Neil Kinnock.”
Biden appears unable to just quit dissembling around the edges, then telling curious minds he didn’t mean anything by it. One might even call it a pattern.
We’ve been hearing the same rationalizations from the Biden campaign for his frequent “gaffes” and from Joe himself about his “boundary” issues with women. Never mind the “concerns” some progressives express about his willingness, perhaps eagerness, to reach compromise with the Republicans — some of the most egregious segregationists in the GOP including Strom Thurmond, whom he considered a close friend — on issues no longer open to gutting for the sake of harmony among members of “the congressional old boys club.” Not so much that his behavior is extreme, let alone aberrant as what we’ve witnessed from the GOP in recent years, but that he privately considers his judgment superior to that of detractors in his own party. I return to a point I made in an earlier piece,
“That is an innately condescending position to take and it is programmed into the genetics of very decent men of that generation. ”
Just yesterday, Joe Biden said to Jonathan Capehart:
“I was making the point how courageous these people are, how incredible they are, this generation of warriors, these fallen angels we’ve lost. I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?”
This is where Joe Biden’s big — like abyss — of vulnerability as a candidate exist: he genuinely does not understand that when this country has existed, for nearly three years, under this rein of existential terror wrought by this pathological liar, it is EXACTLY why we need for him NOT to just “make it up” as he goes. Trump lies like he breathes making it painfully evident that “we the people” can’t trust a word he says. It is very “Trumpian” of Biden to tell us why we shouldn’t be bothered by his gaffes, or his creative narratives, or his unsolicited liberties, as if there’s “nothing to see here, just move along.” Look where that got us.
He really doesn’t get it. I personally — as someone of that generation in between who has a clue where Biden is coming from and, at the same time, who definitely sees why younger folks are sick to death of this placating nonsense — have tried to make the case for conciliation. Polls show many older folks trust Joe Biden at a time when they are terrified of re-electing this idiot; they are not as loud as the young progressives, but they are vast in numbers and they vote. And they should not be disrespected or dismissed, as they were there fighting the really tough battles so new generations would not have to. It is, perhaps, the downside of never being confronted with those extreme institutional depravities that so many of those “next” generations have no grasp of what others went to the barricades for — literally — so their kids wouldn’t have to.
And I’ve tried to communicate humbly and with circumspection, why the black community is so loyal to Biden: perhaps young folks can’t fully grasp what an epic thing it was for him to stick with Barack Obama, to be a real confidante and really have President Obama’s back the way Biden did as Vice President, but it was epic. History provides real concrete evidence as to why some black folks are all in on Joe Biden for president. Especially if they think he is the best guarantee of stopping Trump in 2020.
I, personally, have tried to make the case that a Biden nomination for president is the least of progressives’ concerns right now, and I will continue to do that because it really is — I proffer — neither here nor there which of the Democrats wins this election, as long as the Democrat wins.
But this is a bridge too far for me: if — after all this — Joe Biden still does not understand the problem with his standing up in front of all these people and making shit up cause he’s just “Uncle Joe” telling another good story to make people “feel the love,” he needs to stop now. Cause we really have no way of knowing whether or not this intransigence will get worse in the next few years. And that is a horrifying prospect.
If I want to listen to an old man get up in front of a crowd and say crazy shit to get the base frothing at the mouth, I will watch a Trump rally. And I don’t do that either.