Biden Employs the ‘Fake but Accurate Defense’ After WaPo Says His War Story Never Happened
We’ve still got one day to go in August. Just what gaffe, misstatement, or made-up story will Joe Biden tell next?
It’s not exactly breaking news that Joe Biden has been gaffe-prone for most of his political life. It’s also not new news Biden tends to fabricate or embellish stories about himself while on the campaign trail to impress crowds.
Just this month alone, he’s committed so many blunders and misstatements that most of us have lost count.
Thanks to The Washington Post engaging in some actual journalism for a change, we can add “making up war stories that never happened” to the list.
On Thursday, the paper wrote about a story Biden told in New Hampshire about a trip to Afghanistan as vice president over a decade ago at the request of a four-star general.
As Biden told it, the general wanted him to bestow the Silver Star on a Navy captain who had rescued the body of a fallen soldier amid enemy fire. The captain told Biden during the awards ceremony that he didn’t deserve the award because the soldier he had rescued had died, according to Biden.
The story was very moving the way Biden told it, and he assured the crowd that “This is the God’s truth, my word as a Biden” that the story was true.
But the Post looked into the details of the story he told and concluded that the events the 2020 presidential candidate described “never happened:”
Except almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect. Based on 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.
Biden visited Konar province in 2008 as a U.S. senator, not as vice president. The service member who performed the celebrated rescue that Biden described was a 20-year-old Army specialist, not a much older Navy captain. And that soldier, Kyle J. White, never had a Silver Star, or any other medal, pinned on him by Biden. At a White House ceremony six years after Biden’s visit, White stood at attention as President Barack Obama placed a Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, around his neck.
The upshot: In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.
The Post noted later in the piece that Biden has told the story many times over the years, especially since 2016, and each time he was less and less accurate. However, they did provide one tiny silver lining for Biden as it related to medal-pinning:
One element of Biden’s story is rooted in an actual event: In 2011, the vice president did pin a medal on a heartbroken soldier, Army Staff Sgt. Chad Workman, who didn’t believe he deserved the award.
Biden was asked about the story late Thursday afternoon by the paper, and here’s what he said:
In an interview with Washington Post opinion columnist Jonathan Capehart after the report was first published, Biden suggested he was telling Workman’s story in New Hampshire, although almost none of the details he offered matched what actually happened to Workman.
“I was making the point how courageous these people are, how incredible they are, this generation of warriors, these fallen angels we’ve lost,” he said. “I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?”
Biden was interviewed by South Carolina’s Post and Courier Thursday evening after a town hall event, and they asked him about the WaPo’s report. He employed the fake but accurate defense. Here are excerpts from that interview:
Post and Courier: Did you conflate details of those different stories?
Biden: “No I don’t think so, but I haven’t seen the article.”
[…]
Post and Courier: The reason why some people are looking at this story, even though it’s just about one story in New Hampshire that you told, is broader concerns about misstatements on the trail. Obviously folks have asked you about your age and you’ve said we should judge by your performance.
Biden: “I think it’s ridiculous. The essence — that there’s anything I said about that that wasn’t the essence of the story. The story was that he refused the medal because the fella he tried to save and risked his life saving died. That’s the beginning, middle and end. The rest of you guys can take it and do what you want with it.”
Read the full Q&A the paper did with him on the Washington Post’s write-up here.
Naturally, Biden is widely mocked and ridiculed by conservatives in response to this news:
And that’s how you get Elizabeth Warren. Congratulations Democrats.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 29, 2019
Not to be outdone by Hillary's made-up sniper fire in Bosnia, Joe Biden has been telling voters a phony war story.
Biden's barely been in the race for 4 months and his campaign is already a mess. https://t.co/QZmMPYbIG5
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) August 30, 2019
https://twitter.com/HashtagGriswold/status/1167120128779177989
"It was 20 minutes before dawn on D-Day and this 9-star general says to me, 'Mr. President, it's too dangerous for you to go in there…'"@MarkSteynOnline mocks @JoeBiden on @TuckerCarlson after Biden was called out for false war story on the campaign trail. pic.twitter.com/KPBhKYMy66
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 30, 2019
Though their reporting was thorough, The Washington Post didn’t escape criticism, either, including from former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, who smells an oppo dump:
Not in any way taking anything away from the reporters, who undoubtedly reported it out, but this reads like the product of a pretty sophisticated opposition research dump,https://t.co/fsml8AXB47
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 29, 2019
Imagine a @washingtonpost headline,
"As he campaigns for president, Donald Trump tells a moving but false war story"
The Trump headline would be:
"Lying on the campaign trail, erratic and slipping in polls, Donald Trump is making up war stories"
Biden’s lies are "moving". ? pic.twitter.com/aCuPPRsOEQ
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 29, 2019
ABC and NBC played defense for Biden. CNN’s April Ryan said we could blame President Trump’s “climate of lies” for this story getting the attention.
We’ve still got one day to go in August. Just what gaffe, misstatement or made-up story will Joe Biden tell next?
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Biden speaks truth to facts. WaPo, withdrawing from a failed multi-trimester witch hunt, for its part, is not enamored with decaffeinated Joe. Perhaps they don’t approve of the competition.
Have any liberal publications reported on the reaction to this lie by Joe Brains with a headline that starts with “Conservatives Pounce”?
Baron Von Munchausen syndrome.
The money shot is when Joe Brains gave his word “as a Biden”.
The crowd fell silent because by gawd, if you cannot trust a self-enriching, self-aggrandizing, bloodsucking troughfeeder like a Biden, who can you trust?
The Post reported that the crowd of 400 people in Hanover fell “silent” and the former vice president gave his “word as a Biden” that the story was true on Friday.
They were all silently thinking “a Biden?”. I had a really healthy Biden this morning after eating that oatmeal for breakfast and that two-mile walk.
I didn’t know Joe Biden attended the Dan Rather School of Journalism preceptorship. At least he personally didn’t experience coming under fire as Hillary did.
Biden’s idiocy explains EVERYTHING about obama’s Fisher-Price presidency.
“Fisher-Price presidency.”
Bingo.
I’m using that one!!
A voter has to decide if these are extemporaneous trivialities, like “when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor,” or are they important prepared statements—like saying “we’ve always been at war with Eastsia,” when what he should have said was “we’ve never been at war with Eastasia.”
At some point, minor flubs will become major crises.
The press likes to blame a Trumpian atmosphere for blunders by D’rats, mainly by pretending that a routine “it’ll be yuuge” (when it probably won’t be) is equivalent to “if you like your government of enumerated powers, you can keep your government of enumerated powers.” A rhetorical flourish is equated with deliberate deception. In other words, Fake News.
“Doctor Biden, Doctor Biden. Paging Doctor Jill Biden”
“Husband needs your curative powers immediately – Code Blue – Code Blue”
“But, but I’m not a real doctor. I only have a EdD in so-called “educational leadership,” a degree considered by many, myself included, as a phony credential. Despite that, I pretentiously insist that people address me as ‘Doctor.’ In truth I’m really only qualified to lead 4th graders to play areas for recess.
“But I do excel in my ability to sling it around. My dissertation – Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs – provides ample proof of that. I filled 136 pages saying nothing that countless others have said countless times before. But if you’re not convinced at my ability to throw it around without saying anything important, let me direct you to two other books. “The Things That Matter In Life: The Collected Words of Dr. Jill Biden” (see, I got that undeserved title of Doctor in there again). But the Magic of Me doesn’t end there. And now (2019) I’ve written an autobiography, Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, documenting my privileged life.
“And, no, there is no end to my self-adulation.”
Well now we know what the “Word of a Biden” is worth!!
But I want biden to be the nominee! If he keeps this up he’ll be a THREE time failed presidential candidate. Not that warren or bernie have a chance, I just think a gropin’ joe vs President Donald J. Trump will be far more entertaining. “My word as a biden” indeed.
Would that be a record? Harold Stassen might have something to say about that.
A sad, pathetic old man. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to know he has lost his presence of mind.
“[Biden] said, ‘I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?’”
Why, other than apparently being unaware there is any difference at all between your subjective made-up fantasy and objective actual reality, nothing at all, Joe.
I wonder if any media organizations have reached out to Senator Booker to get T-Bone’s take on this or the media could request that Senator Warren commune with the spirits of her Cherokee ancestors for clarification…
Maybe instead we should just accept that some prominent candidates for the D presidential primary are prone to embellishments. After all who can forget Hillary Clinton’s harrowing tale of enduring ‘sniper fire’.
Was Field Marshall Cory Booker available for comment?
All hail Spartacus!
All joking aside, Dem primary voters are going to be facing a quandary when (likely not if) Biden implodes. Where do non-commie Dems go when their first choice is suddenly declaring he’s not a witch, er, nutjob? They’re not going to cranky, shouty commie Bernie or lying, grasping commie Warren, they’re going to someone they think is both acceptable (not a dyed-in-the-wool commie loon) and electable. Booker would do well to sit back and let all this happen so that he ends up looking like the sane one (by contrast to Sanders and Warren) whom they believe can actually beat Trump.
It isn’t in T-Bone’s BFF’s nature to be the sane one in any crowd.
Yes, Dem voters have a real quandary on their hands. And it is entirely their own fault. Good luck with that search for the niche “historic first” boutique candidate, losers.
Truth over facts, it’s a Biden thing.
I know that decent human beings on my side of the aisle, who oppose Biden, are lamenting the fact that Biden is publicly degrading himself. Some are even accusing those who put Biden up to this of engaging in a form of elder abuse.
I on the other hand am sufficiently man primeval that I find this funny as h3ll, a kind of cosmic justice, since Biden has been a demonstrable @$$ since at least the 1980s,
Poor Joe, his mind is ebbing away… And he didn’t start with much to begin with.
Get Joe a young woman! He needs to sniff some of that elixir of teen, STAT!