What we love about Joe Biden’s storytelling is that you never know which version you’re gonna get. And the excitement over whether or not any of his facts are correct is exhilarating. Just Over the weekend, the presidential hopeful told a compelling story about being arrested when he was in South Africa hoping to meet Nelson Mandela in the 1970s; then recanted it. At firs Biden “claimed he was arrested along with then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, but Young said he was never arrested while in the country” reported Politico.
Young’s announcement forced Biden to recant the story, but he then went on “Fox News Sunday” to set the record straight, saying he was not arrested but was held up at the airport when he refused to go through a whites-only entrance. “The Afrikaners took me off the plane and took me in one direction, wanted me to go through a white-only door, and in fact, I wouldn’t move…I said everybody else is going through another door, I’m going with the black delegation that I came with.” Details are just so darn pesky. “I guess I should’ve said I was detained; I was not able to move forward,” said Biden.
Oh wait, there’s more. While we can’t get into all of the gaffe machine’s laundry list of nonsense, here are a few more. When recounting a story to over 400 people in New Hampshire last year, Joe finished a story saying, “this is God’s truth…My word as a Biden.” Except, hardly any of the story was true.
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Joe discussed an occasion where a four-star general asked then-Vice President Biden to go to Afghanistan an honor a Navy captain by pinning a Silver Star on the young man. “He said, ‘Sir, I don’t want the damn thing!’ “Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!” the young man said about rappelling down a ravine to retrieve the body of a fellow American soldier.
However, The Washington Post found that virtually none of the story was correct. “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” reported the Washington Post.
What really happened? First of all, Biden visited Afghanistan as a Senator, not vice president. The service member Biden mentioned was a 20-year-old Army specialist, not a Navy captain. Also, the 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.”
Here is the most cringe-worthy story Biden has fabricated involves victims of the Parkland high school mass shooting. Only in August of last year, Joe Biden said he met with students who survived the horrific Parkland, Florida mass school shooting while he was Vice President “I met with them and then they went off up on the Hill when I was vice president…those kids in Parkland came up to see me when I was vice president.” The truth of the matter is, the Parkland shooting did not even occur until February 2018, over a year after Biden left the White House.
