{"id":1684101,"date":"2022-10-11T17:10:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T21:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684101"},"modified":"2022-10-11T17:10:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T21:10:20","slug":"joe-biden-is-our-greatest-fabulist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/joe-biden-is-our-greatest-fabulist\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden Is Our Greatest Fabulist"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjoe-biden-is-our-greatest-fabulist%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684101&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>At first glance, I thought The New York Times had finally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/10\/us\/politics\/biden-exaggeration-falsehood.html?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">written a piece<\/a> highlighting Joe Biden\u2019s decades-long propensity to lie. Instead, what we got was more of an explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Biden\u2019s \u201cfolksiness,\u201d contends The New York Times, \u201ccan veer into a personal folklore\u201d with \u201cthe factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences.\u201d (Not to be pedantic, but folklore is a collection of stories and legends shared by a community, not stories and legends concocted by a single person. Those are more appropriately called \u201cfiction.\u201d) The Times expends many words assuring its audience that Donald Trump\u2019s lies were much, much worse than Biden\u2019s largely innocuous folklore.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe, maybe not. Most of the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/08\/heres-the-full-list-of-every-lie-joe-biden-has-told-as-president-189-and-counting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lie counters<\/a> have been shut down. All politicians lie. It\u2019s not like Biden doesn\u2019t lie about policy, about his opponents, about his accomplishments, and about history \u2013 mostly his own. Biden might not tell the most consequential lies, but he is a congenital fabulist, perhaps the greatest of any major American political figure in history. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Times taps left-wing journalist Eric Alterman as an expert on presidential mendacity. He argues that Biden \u2013 \u201ca good and decent man\u201d\u2013 is merely guilty of engaging in the kind of lies \u201cgrandfathers\u201d might tell. Biden has a \u201ctendency,\u201d Alterman says, to \u201cstretch the truth up to a point just like virtually every president has done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>History disputes this contention.<\/p>\n<p>Biden recently <a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/tipsheet\/saraharnold\/2022\/10\/06\/joe-biden-is-caught-in-another-lie-n2614074\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">veered<\/a> into some personal folklore, telling Hurricane Ian victims that his family \u201clost an awful lot of\u201d their home when lightning struck (Last year, he claimed to understand the pain of \u201chaving had a house burn down with my wife in it\u201d). Turns out, more than 15 years ago, the Bidens had \u201ca small fire that was contained to the kitchen,\u201d according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firehouse.com\/home\/news\/10516121\/lightning-sparks-fire-at-bidens-house\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contemporary accounts<\/a>. A few days earlier, Biden assured the victims of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico that he too was basically \u201craised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/10\/03\/biden-claims-he-was-raised-in-the-puerto-rican-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">According<\/a> to the New York Post, in 1970, when Biden was 28, Delaware \u201chad about 2,154 people who were either born in Puerto Rico or descended from Puerto Rican parents,\u201d or roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.census.gov\/library\/publications\/decennial\/1970\/population-volume-1\/1970a_de-02.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">0.39 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, those kinds of stories perhaps stretch the truth. Biden\u2019s long history shows that his habit of lying is far more pervasive.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take his contention on race. While campaigning in Alabama for the presidency in 1987, Biden \u2014 then a youthful 45 \u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/joe-biden-delaware-civil-war-860886\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">bragged<\/a> that the infamous George Wallace had given him an award for being \u201cone of the outstanding young politicians of America.\u201d Now, it is true Joe Biden spent the mid-1970s being mentored by pro-segregationist senators like James O. Eastland and Herman Talmadge, but there is no record of him getting any award for his work from the infamous racist.<\/p>\n<p>A few years earlier, Biden, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/politics\/i-was-one-of-those-guys-joe-biden-falsely-claimed-he-took-part-in-civil-rights-marches-boycotts-and-sit-ins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">whose<\/a> \u201csoul raged upon seeing the dogs of Bull Connor,\u201d also claimed to have marched in the civil rights movement and participated \u201cin sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie houses\u201d at the age of 17. \u00a0\u201cJoe Biden,\u201d Joe Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=sLFpJYd8JuEC&amp;pg=PA321&amp;lpg=PA321&amp;dq=%22represented+the+Black+Panthers+at+the+time+they+were+burning+down+my+city,+was+a+criminal+defense+lawyer,+and+the+proponent+of+public+housing+in+the+county+that+election.+And,+guess+what?+I+won.%E2%80%9D&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=76oQh7Llr6&amp;sig=ACfU3U2skx8SAnK4BsY5Zdxh_csY6PzE8w&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjMhdmV7dj6AhUyD1kFHW2RBSUQ6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&amp;q=%22represented%20the%20Black%20Panthers%20at%20the%20time%20they%20were%20burning%20down%20my%20city%2C%20was%20a%20criminal%20defense%20lawyer%2C%20and%20the%20proponent%20of%20public%20housing%20in%20the%20county%20that%20election.%20And%2C%20guess%20what%3F%20I%20won.%E2%80%9D&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explained<\/a> in 1981, at the age of 39, \u201cwas a lawyer who did work for the black community, represented the Black Panthers at the time they were burning down my city, was a criminal defense lawyer, and the proponent of public housing in the county that election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, at the age of 72, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/02\/14\/ahead-south-carolina-vote-joe-biden-faces-questions-claims-civil-rights-activism-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">was<\/a> still going on about how he \u201cgot involved in desegregating movie theaters.\u201d There is no evidence of it being true. A couple of years ago, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/02\/21\/us\/politics\/biden-south-africa-arrest-mandela.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">told<\/a> an audience in South Carolina that he \u201chad the great honor of being arrested\u201d on \u201cthe streets of Soweto\u201d in South Africa when attempting to meet Nelson Mandela. None of it was remotely true. This year, at the age of 79, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/phNwv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suggested<\/a> to black college students in Atlanta that he had been arrested during civil rights protests. All of this was a kind of stolen valor, really.<\/p>\n<p>The chances that Biden participated in sit-ins in 1959 or was defending Blank Panthers in the 1960s or came anywhere near being arrested in the 1990s are about as likely as little Joey <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/politics\/joe-biden-father-men-kissing-interview\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seeing<\/a> gay men kissing on a street corner in working-class Wilmington in 1961 \u2014 or for that matter, ever hearing his Baltimore-born, middle-class dad dropping progressive axioms on him about love being love. Zero.<\/p>\n<p>Here is some other stuff \u201cevery president\u201d hasn\u2019t done: lie about having attended the University of Syracuse Law School on a \u201cfull academic scholarship,\u201d lie about finishing in the \u201ctop half\u201d of his class, lie about winning an award for outstanding political science student at the University of Delaware, and lie about finishing with \u201cthree degrees.\u201d Evidence suggests that Biden almost surely lied about his superior IQ, as well.<\/p>\n<p>None of this even gets into what is perhaps the most blatant act of plagiarism in national political history. Biden didn\u2019t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/09\/12\/us\/biden-s-debate-finale-an-echo-from-abroad.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">just pinch<\/a> an entire speech from one-time British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock \u2013 as Maureen Dowd put it at the time, using \u201cphrases, gestures and lyrical Welsh syntax intact\u201d\u2013 but he <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2008\/08\/why-biden-s-plagiarims-shouldn-t-be-forgotten.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">also<\/a> plagiarized Hubert Humphrey, and John and Robert Kennedy, as well.<\/p>\n<p>These aren\u2019t stories with \u201cthe factual edges shaved off.\u201d They were either cynical lies told to gain personal power or the work of a pathological liar. Considering Biden continued his transparent fabulism even after his first presidential campaign imploded, the latter seems possible.<\/p>\n<p>Drop a needle on any era of Biden\u2019s 50-year career, and you\u2019re going to hear a greatest hit.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, Biden was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/nightly-news\/video\/joe-biden-one-on-one-interview-with-lester-holt-extended-76225093504\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">still pretending<\/a> he had shifted U.S. policy on Bosnia in 1990s. \u201cLook, I\u2019m the guy that started the effort to make sure we took down the guy who was engaged in genocide in the Balkans: Slobodan Milosevic.\u201d In \u201cPromises to Keep,\u201d his 2007 compendium of folklore, Biden contends he personally confronted Milosevic in a secret 1993 meeting, telling the dictator, \u201cI think you\u2019re a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.\u201d Weirdly, not a single person in the room could corroborate this extraordinary moment, save Biden\u2019s then-chief of staff Ted Kaufman. As the Washington Post gingerly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/10\/06\/AR2008100602681_pf.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">put it<\/a> in 2008, \u201cBiden Played Less Than Key Role in Bosnia Legislation.\u201d Indeed, he was the ninth co-sponsor of a bill on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Or take one of Biden\u2019s most imaginative folk stories. This one revolves around the story of a Navy captain who rappelled down a 60-foot ravine in Afghanistan\u2019s Kunar province to save his fellow soldier. Biden was intent on giving this man a medal. When generals warned that going to Afghanistan was too dangerous, Biden brushed off their concerns. \u201cWe can lose a vice president,\u201d the president imagined himself <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/biden-misstated-details-war-story-campaign-trail-report\/story?id=65271205\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t lose many more of these kids. Not a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to type those words without laughing at his audacity. But there is more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod\u2019s truth, my word as a Biden,\u201d the president told an audience 10 years after it didn\u2019t happen. \u201cHe stood at attention, I went to pin him, he said: \u2018Sir, I don\u2019t want the damn thing. Do not pin it on me sir, please. Do not do that. He died. He died.\u2019\u201d Other than the fact that Biden never visited the Kunar province as vice president and never pinned a silver star on any Navy captain it\u2019s a great story.<\/p>\n<p>On and on it goes.<\/p>\n<p>After an anti-Semite murdered 11 people in 2018, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fa6wjlQffHE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> to \u201cremember spending time at the, you know, going to the, you know, the Tree of Life synagogue, speaking with them.\u201d He never went. When speaking about wildfires in Idaho in 2021, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/bidens-claim-to-have-received-first-job-offer-from-idaho-lumber-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> his \u201cfirst job offer\u201d came from a local lumber company in Boise. Boise Cascade says it has no idea what he\u2019s talking about. When speaking to graduating midshipmen at the Naval Academy this year, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/bidens-tale-of-a-1965-naval-academy-appointment-draws-scrutiny\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spun<\/a> a curiously specific story about how he had been \u201cappointed to the academy in 1965\u201d but opted not to go because it didn\u2019t offer him a football career. Since Annapolis offers no graduate programs, and Biden graduated from the University of Delaware and applied to Syracuse Law School in 1965 \u2013 in neither institution did play any football \u2014 it is a dubious tale. Biden had requested five student draft deferments during those years over his asthma \u2013 which much like his stuttering, only appears as needed \u2014 it seems odd that he would have chosen a naval career.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, you could write a 1,000-page novel detailing the imaginary life of Joe Biden. And you can discount his unique place among our greatest liars because you prefer his politics. Contra The New York Times\u2019 intimations, however, it\u2019s not normal.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At first glance, I thought The New York Times had finally written a piece highlighting Joe Biden\u2019s decades-long propensity to lie. Instead, what we got was more of an explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1888762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}