Joe’s “word as a Biden”
Joe Biden is starting to worry the left, because it looks as though he might be nominated and would be a really bad candidate. That’s a nightmare they don’t want to relive.
And so helpful outlets such as the WaPo are pointing out some of Joe’s flaws, such as the tall tale he told on the campaign trail the other day, a war story that was “moving, but false.”
And outlets such as Esquire blame it on Trump, naturally:
The emerging consensus seems to be that Biden lied here…
This has launched some think-pieces on whether this is symptomatic of the post-truth world the current president has ushered in, where the facts and the details don’t matter much—or often, in fact, are irrelevant—when you’re in pursuit of some larger goal.
To those of us who have observed the left and the MSM for many decades, that’s pretty funny. The president has ushered in a “post-truth world”? How about—just to take one very small and relatively recent example—Rathergate?
It occurs to me that the Esquire article’s author, whose name is Jack Holmes, might—like so many others in the MSM—be very young. I don’t mean “young” in relation to me—that’s just about everyone—but I mean young in the more absolute sense. And sure enough, when I looked him up on Linked In, I discover that he graduated from college in 2014. That would make him something like 26 years old.
My memory may be getting foggy, like good old Joe Biden’s (I hope not), but it seems to me that years ago no one of the age of 26 would have been the politics editor of Esquire. And yet that is Holmes’ position at the moment. The youth of those in the MSM trying to shape the viewpoints of Americans is something I’ve written about before, however; I refer you to this post of mine from 2010.
But that’s somewhat of a digression, although not entirely. The point is that Biden either lied or is getting a bit gaga, or both.
But Biden has always told tall tales; he is somewhat known for it. Case in point, some things Biden said during his debate with Sarah Palin in 2008. I particularly recall this one, which got a fair amount of press at the time:
“All you have to do is go down Union street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie’s Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years,” said Sen. Joe Biden in the vice presidential debate to bolster his assertion he’s in touch with the concerns of the middle class.
That answer suggested otherwise.
“It came as a surprise to us in Delaware that Joe Biden recently had a meal and talked with patrons at Katie’s Restaurant on Union Street in Wilmington,” said an email to National Review Online.
“Katie’s Restaurant closed years ago. It was on Scott Street in Little Italy.”
The people who fill up at his neighborhood gas station can’t pay for a full tank of gas, Sen. Biden said. Sen. Biden lives in a 7,000 square foot estate on a four acre lakefront lot in Greenville, which is described as “northern Delaware’s priciest area.”
Sen. Biden says things which are not true with passionate conviction.
Yes, yes he does. He delivered his war story the other day with passionate conviction, as well.
More from that 2008 debate, to refresh your memory (we all could use some memory-refreshing, right?—not just Joe):
“Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch,” Sen. Biden said, dismissing Sarah Palin’s expressed intention to play a role in legislative affairs.
Article I of the Constitution defines the role of Congress, the legislative branch, and declares that “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” That is the only responsibility of the vice president delineated anywhere in the Constitution. Article II describes the responsibilities of the Executive Branch. The election of the vice president is mentioned in Article II, but that Article says not a word about the powers and duties of the vice president as vice president.
Under Sen. Obama’s tax plan, the wealthiest Americans will “pay no more than they did under Ronald Reagan,” Sen. Biden said.
Sen. Obama wants to raise the top income tax bracket to 39.6 percent. Ronald Reagan had lowered it to 28 percent.
“When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon,” Sen. Biden said.
“Biden said the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life,” said Michael Totten, who reported from there during the so-called Cedar Revolution. “Nobody has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody. Joe Biden has literally no idea what he is talking about.”
Ah, but he became vice-president nonetheless. And in 2020, twelve long years later, he might even be elected president.
One very curious portion of his recent war story is one I haven’t seen too many people focusing on. It’s the finale:
“This is the God’s truth,” he added. “My word as a Biden.”
Very very strange. Was someone questioning his veracity at the time? I don’t think so. Did he know he was lying, and was he “protesting too much“?
What’s more, what on earth does “my word as a Biden” mean? Are the Bidens known for extraordinary veracity? The only Biden of which I’m aware is Joe himself, and his reputation is hardly stellar in that regard. Not only has he been lying blatantly throughout much of his political career, but he’s committed plagiarism multiple times:
“My intent was not to deceive anyone,” Biden wrote at the time [1988]. “For if it were, I would not have been so blatant.”
So once again, what was it Joe Biden meant when he said “my word as a Biden”?
Brit Hume did a profile of Biden for The New Republic back in 1986. The guy’s been known for decades as a showboating motormouth. And again, the Neil Kinnock business. How must his mother and father, who were real people with real lives, reacted to him passing them off as a coal mining family? (His paternal-grandfather was a business executive; his father’s career had its ups and downs and the family had flush years and lean years, but he was white collar all the way).
Tucker Carlson had a montage of some of “China Joe’s” best the other night, and in one of the clips Biden is seen telling people in his audience that–once upon a time–he had been a “hard anthracite coal miner—Scranton, PA.”
Yeah, I’m sure Ol’ “lunch box” Joe did a lot of that there coal mining (the most dangerous job in America), sweating and bent over, deep underground, and waiting for a methane explosion, or for the roof overhead to collapse.
At one point in the past Biden had also claimed that he had coal miners in his family, but in an interview he admitted—
“Turns out I didn’t have anybody in the coal mines, you know what I mean? I tried that crap — it didn’t work.” *
The only thing that Joe has apparently mined is a rich vein of bullshit and blarney.
Looking at his performance lately, it is obvious to me that his mental faculties are declining, and rather precipitously.
Biden must be aware of this. Thus, his cry of denial the other afternoon when, after he couldn’t remember where he had given a speech that very morning, he assured his audience, “I’m not going nuts, folks.”
Can you imagine this guy talking with leaders at the G7, Putin, Maduro, Castro, or Kim? Let’s hear what he has to say about missile defense in Poland or the Nordstream pipeline in Germany. But I bet Hunter will be willing to talk with Chinese bankers for him.
“My word as a Biden” has a rather old-fashioned charm to it. It means nothing to him in reality, but it has that nice kind of sound that he hopes will be reassuring to older people in PA and the Midwest.
His father was a salesman, for the most part. He was employed by an oil company at one point, by real estate firms at another. Owned his own business at one point.
His paternal side grandfather was also a salesman, but one promoted to management.
His maternal-side grandfather (who was Irish born) worked in the advertising department of the local newspaper (in sales, then as a supervisor).
His paternal-side grandfather’s father and father-in-law were, respectively, a greengrocer and locomotive engineer. (At least you use coal in the latter occupation).
His maternal grandmother’s father (whose parents were Irish born) was a civil engineer.
Famous Democrats and progressives known to be plagiarists.
Start your TopTenz list now!
1. Politics …
2. Social activists …
3 “Historians” …
I should have added “personalities/celebrities” and “fabulators” to that as well.
That way anyone could do it without even reaching.
I think the man is suffering from a form of dementia. Be it Alzheimer’s or related to strokes or other causes. At some point, they’ll have to pull the plug.
On the campaign, not the candidate!!
Joe Biden’s success is easily explained; at the start of his political career, he sold his soul to the devil.
His actions and words demonstrate his utter lack of a conscience.
To be fair that dude is a Biden.
The dude a Bides.
Neil Kinnock is still around — “Three decades after Biden stole his speech, Neil Kinnock endorses his 2020 bid”, in which Kinnock says that Biden’s “[n]ot perfect, but with only mundane imperfections, which, I think, will have real appeal to the electorate.”
aside:
the hong kong protesters were singing religioous songs (forbidden)
and linked up hands around the city….
they were doing the same as the singing war that latvians, estonians, and lithuanians did… along with joining hands accross the country…
Thousands link hands in a Hong Kong vigil protesting a more aggressive Beijing
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/thousands-link-hands-in-a-hong-kong-vigil-protesting-a-more-aggressive-beijing/2019/08/23/dc1656a0-c55b-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html
nspired by an effort 30 years ago in the Baltic states that called for the end of Soviet rule, tens of thousands in Hong Kong on Friday held hands under the night sky to form a human chain snaking 27 miles across the territory, in a vigil against an increasingly authoritarian China intent on clamping down against their protest movement.
Estonia-based Hongkonger proposes the Baltic Way-inspired human chain in Hong Kong
A Tallinn-based Hong Kong startup entrepreneur proposed the Baltic Way-inspired human chain in a secret internet forum and the activists are turning the idea into reality – the human chain in support of democracy is due to take place in Hong Kong on 23 August, on the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way.
30 years later, the human chain that ‘unshackled’ the Baltic nations still matters
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-22/30-years-later-human-chain-unshackled-baltic-nations-still-matters
https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/story_main/public/images/2019/08/2019-08-22-baltic-way01.jpg?itok=bgx7oFgw
“Late ’80s was a very extraordinary time in the Baltics and certainly in Lithuania. The idea of freedom and hopes for freedom was becoming more and more believable.”
Dainius Vai?ekonis
That August day 30 years ago, Vai?ekonis joined hands with almost 2 million people in what was then the longest human chain in history, a mass demonstration that brought the Baltic countries closer to freedom after 50 years of communist rule. Today, it offers a relevant, nonviolent template for pro-democracy groups fighting for human rights.
Celebratory reenactments of the demonstration will take place across the world this Friday, Aug. 23, which is also recognized as Black Ribbon Day in the European Union and elsewhere in remembrance of the victims of Stalinism and Nazism. In Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protesters are actively demonstrating against Chinese authorities, organizers have directly drawn on the original spirit of the Baltic event, calling for a 20-mile “Hong Kong Way” demonstration.
From old men to young children, pro-independence protesters in the then-Soviet socialist republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania spanned almost 400 miles through the capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. They stood marking the anniversary of a bloody crossroads in Baltic history, when in 1939, the foreign ministers of Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Joseph Stalin’s USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Nonaggression pact. A secret protocol in the agreement, denied by the USSR for decades, condemned the Baltic countries to illegal annexation by the Soviet Union and the repressions that followed.
Fifty years later, bearing the long-banned flags of their independent states and passing the words for freedom — vabadus, br?v?ba, laisve — up and down the line, Baltic people defied Soviet authorities to demand their human rights be restored.
“You could literally see that half the country was out in the road and holding hands,” said Juris Kaža, a Latvian American freelance journalist who filmed the demonstration over Latvia from a surreptitiously hired helicopter. “It really, really was practically all three nations holding hands and saying, ‘We want to get out of the Soviet Union, that’s it.'”
The Baltic Way was part of the larger, overarching Baltic freedom movement called the Baltic Singing Revolution, where musical traditions of the region played a key role in reestablishing independence in 1991. Guntis Šmidchens, head of the Baltic Studies program at University of Washington in Seattle, looks at this history in his book, “The Power of Song.”
“Where does the bravery come from when people face off with armed soldiers and tanks? Bravery comes from knowing there are people around you; you hear them singing, you know that you’re not alone,” Šmidchens said. “Bravery also comes from within you. And singing is one of the human actions that give the human self-confidence and bravery.”
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-22/30-years-later-human-chain-unshackled-baltic-nations-still-matters
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I was a part of BATUN then… we fought and all helped win Baltic freedom!!!
The demonstration originated in “Black Ribbon Day” protests held in the western cities in the 1980s. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The pact and its secret protocols divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940. The event was organised by Baltic pro-independence movements: Rahvarinne of Estonia, the Tautas fronte of Latvia, and S?j?dis of Lithuania. The protest was designed to draw global attention by demonstrating a popular desire for independence for each of the entities. It also illustrated solidarity among the three nations. It has been described as an effective publicity campaign, and an emotionally captivating and visually stunning scene.[2][3] The event presented an opportunity for the Baltic activists to publicise the Soviet rule and position the question of Baltic independence not only as a political matter, but also as a moral issue. The Soviet authorities responded to the event with intense rhetoric,[2] but failed to take any constructive actions that could bridge the widening gap between the Baltic republics and the rest of the Soviet Union. Within seven months of the protest, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence.
After the Revolutions of 1989, 23 August has become an official remembrance day both in the Baltic countries, in the European Union and in other countries, known as the Black Ribbon Day or as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
i wish them all the luck…
they are waving american flags..
and are up against China migrating people into hong kong
migration warfare is what its called… and they are using it
Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic polls is directly related to the 26-year-old dude being politics editor at Esquire. We’ve been energetically tearing down standards and traditions in America and the West for over half a century now. Some of it was needed, some of it wasn’t, but we could get away with it because the people tearing down those traditions had been raised with them and still often followed them personally while deploring them publicly.
Now those generations raised without having to live up to those old standards is taking over leadership positions. Take Rather, for example. Whatever else you might say about him, the dude had done and seen it all when he ascended to the evening anchor chair at CBS. Now take a look at Jeff Glor’s resume when he was awarded what is still one of the most important positions in our public culture.
Mike
…but it seems to me that years ago no one of the age of 26 would have been the politics editor of Esquire.
neo: It’s weird to watch old black-and-white shows and see people in senior positions usually being senior — balding, paunchy, but well-dressed and respected.
Liberals see a future America which is dominated by Millennials, who are overwhelmingly liberal. I believe much of what we see in politics and the media is based on that presupposition.
It’s a serious threat. I had hoped Millennials would go conservative when they realized how much they would be paying for American socialism. It’s looking like I was wrong.
Oh Vex not Biden: O, let him pass! he hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
The young, like Jack Holmes, have become the drivers of America. Wisdom requires experience, especially the experience of errors and failures, so wisdom is a feature of older ages.
But since the ’60s all has changed. For the worse. They are young, juveniles.Their music, art, thinking are all Dreck These snotty-nosed young know-it-alls are the death of European civilization. I do not expect they will find their new lives in the equivalent of Boola-Boola Land to be all that pleasant and rewarding, but it will be too late to fix. A socialist (totalitarian or authoritarian) life without children, vaccines, individual mobility (no cars, just mass transport), God, or air conditioning will serve them right.
Biden is a total joke.
The most impressive part of Joe’s war story was when he said the two soldiers were in the midst of a firestorm.
Just imagine the carpet bombing with incendiary bombs and all those wood structures, or was it dense forest, that caught fire and generated cyclone force winds.
Oh wait, … Joe meant to say a firefight? Never mind. In that case, just send in Obama’s corpse men.
“What’s more, what on earth does “my word as a Biden” mean? Are the Bidens known for extraordinary veracity? ” – Neo
That was my first response as well.
Apparently, “my word as a Biden” now means “I’m lying through my teeth.”
That’s being kind of hard on the rest of the clan.
Ann on August 30, 2019 at 5:20 pm said:
Neil Kinnock is still around — “Three decades after Biden stole his speech, Neil Kinnock endorses his 2020 bid”, in which Kinnock says that Biden’s “[n]ot perfect, but with only mundane imperfections, which, I think, will have real appeal to the electorate.”
* * *
And Comey, Holder, Lynch, and Obama also only have mundane imperfections.
Interesting what the Left considers to be “mundane” — as in
Both definitions seem appropriate to me.
As for their appeal to the electorate, I think the voters are more likely tolerating Biden’s lies (for whatever political reasons), rather than seeing them as a positive characteristic.
MBunge on August 30, 2019 at 6:33 pm said:
Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic polls is directly related to the 26-year-old dude being politics editor at Esquire. We’ve been energetically tearing down standards and traditions in America and the West for over half a century now. Some of it was needed, some of it wasn’t, but we could get away with it because the people tearing down those traditions had been raised with them and still often followed them personally while deploring them publicly.
* * *
I’m not too sure about the last assertion, but I do think that the Left has been able to escape some of the consequences of their destruction due to the built-up social and economic “capital” in the USA. In Russia, they used it up after only about 60 years, because there wasn’t much there, even though it was a big country, especially after the annexation of the “Republics.” Venezuela ran through their “social account” much sooner.
There is a reason for the perseverance of the fable of the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg; it’s just that the people with the hatchets don’t believe it.
I’m not too sure about the last assertion…
AesopFan: I believe MBunge is referring to the strong tendency of upper-middle-class and upper-class families, however liberal, to live by the boring old rules of get an education, get a job, get married, have children, raise them and don’t get divorced.
I’ve seen that in my friends. Once they got married and had kids, the divorce window closed until the kids were out of the house.
What’s more, what on earth does “my word as a Biden” mean? Are the Bidens known for extraordinary veracity? –neo
Which reminds me of a Judy Collins song of the Old West, which the Dead and others took up, concerning an uncle and nephew who hit town, hit the saloon and clean out the locals at cards:
From the beginning uncle starts to win
Them Texas cowboys they was mad as sin
Some say he’s cheating but that can’t be
‘Cause my uncle he’s honest as me
And I’m as honest as a Denver man can be
–Judy Collins, “Me and My Uncle”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WZzgsNiNSU
A fight ensues, “me and my uncle” shoot their way out and keep the gold. Then the narrator, boasting of how well his uncle taught him, kills his uncle and keeps the gold.
For you see, he was as honest as a Denver man can be. Or perhaps as honest as a Biden….
The story goes that Judy Collins got the song from John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas who composed it an all-night drinking party which Collins attended.
Being an honest person (though from Denver), Collins put the song on an album with credit to Phillips. Months later Phillips starts getting royalty checks and calls her. Turns out Phillips had no memory of writing the song!
John Phillips is one of the forgotten pop song masters of the sixties. He also wrote “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday,” “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” and “12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon).”
“my word as a Biden”
I was eating dinner and had the TV news on waiting for Jeopardy when I heard him say that – I nearly choked on my dinner!
charles, I guess that means we should have a rule for ourselves: Do not eat while listening to Joe Biden speaking… although drinking (carefully) *is* allowed, especially if you can build a game around it.
Dementia thy name is Biden.
So, Joe’s basically some guy in a bar shooting off his mouth.
Saw a clip of Biden at one of his events a day or so ago, and he went on babbling for a long time, stuttering, and uttering complete nonsense–stringing together words and ideas that just had no coherence to them; it was “word salad.”
Biden’s boast harkens back to an older time when people were actively proud of their families and said things like “my word as a [insert surname].”
I don’t hear people talk that way anymore — except maybe the Scots who go full kilt and bagpipes on occasion — and I miss it. (I’m a McLennan. Yay!)
Powerline had a good post, “Identity politics as a substitute for family ties,” in this area. The decline of the family may be the truest explanation for where America is now.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/identity-politics-as-a-substitute-for-family-ties.php
SSSSSHHHHHHH. Quiet! Don’t do harm to him until after the nomination is settled. Otherwise you have to fight Pocahontas in the main event, and she and her bag of socialism are more to fear than Joe. (I’m assuming the old communist doesn’t have a chance in the nomination fight.)
When the WAPO starts telling the truth about a democrat instead of ignoring his phony stories and covering for him, you know he is going to be thrown under the bus. If you remember when republican Senator Georg Allen made his macaca comment, the media published a hundred stories on it. It was in the news for weeks.
As an old codger, it disturbs me to see someone younger show such obvious signs of mental decline. Joe, with all his faults, is a likable sort. Has been a fixture of American politics for a looong time. Not that I have ever agreed with him on much. What is happening right before our eyes with Biden is a reminder that we all falter at some point in our lives and it would be merciful if we recognized what’s happening. Father Time will have his way with all of us.
“Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” (The Desiderata/Max Erhmann) Good advice for all.
In all truth I tell you, when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.
–John 21:18.
J.J.: I know these words are supposed to foreshadow Peter’s death, but damn if they aren’t also the most poignant comment on old age.
BTW, that’s the Jerusalem Bible translation, which is my favorite. Maybe because I’m ex-Catholic. Maybe because J.R.R. Tolkien was a contributor. (He was a serious scholar and philologist, as well as the guy who invented hobbits, you know.)
For me the Jerusalem conveys the majesty of the King James without the “thou shalt shew” archaisms.
Artfl,
Thanks very much for the info on the Baltic Way and the Baltic Singing Revolution. I’ve never heard of either of them. And thanks also for the links.
“BATUN”? Whazzat?
From the Great Foot, on the history of Latvia from 1949-1991 or thereabouts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_continuity_of_the_Baltic_states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_diplomatic_service_in_exile
Artfl, somehow I got the impression that the first iteration of BATUN was formed in 1949. Is that correct, or am I “full of pea soup,” as my Dad used to say?
Artfldgr and Julie near Chicago:
The Pennywhistlers, a folk group of American women in the mid-sixties, specialized in a cappella Baltic singing. Beautiful and heart-wrenching. Personally sacred music.
–The Pennywhistlers, “Shto Mi e Milo”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjvSvGAsU7g
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