Biden's Making It UP

Biden's Fantasy World is a good indication of who knows the facts and who's being less than truthful.

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

May be Senator Biden was really intimidated by Governor Sarah "Pit Bull" Palin. Intimidated to the point that he had to exaggerate and misstate facts to compete with Governor Palin. Or may be he really doesn't know his facts as well as he should considering his 36 years of Senate experience.

In the popular media wisdom, Sarah Palin is the neophyte who knows nothing about foreign policy while Joe Biden is the savvy diplomatic pro. Then what are we to make of Mr. Biden's fantastic debate voyage last week when he made factual claims that would have got Mrs. Palin mocked from New York to Los Angeles?

Let's get to specifics. Where were the mistakes, exaggerations and just plane "I'm makin' it up, to keep up" quotes? Does Foreign Affairs Senator Biden know who the players are in the Middle East? His misstatements concerning Lebanon, France, NATO, the US and Hezbollah would indicate Joe don't know s**t!

Start with Lebanon, where Mr. Biden asserted that "When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel." [Emphasis mine]

What good is experience if the experience leads to these glaring errors? May be Senator Biden should have been paying more attention.

The U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and no one else has either. Perhaps Mr. Biden meant to say Syria, except that the U.S. also didn't do that. The Lebanese ousted Syria's military in 2005. As for NATO, Messrs. Biden and Obama may have proposed sending alliance troops in, but if they did that was also a fantasy. The U.S. has had all it can handle trying to convince NATO countries to deploy to Afghanistan. [Emphasis mine]

Now I ask you to judge. Which misstatement is worse? The statements of Senator Biden or Governor Palin mispronouncing the name of the General in Afghanistan. Governor Palin reference General McClellan rather than General McKienan.

Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.

Senator Biden also contradicted himself when he made this amazing claim. Ask yourself as you read the following when were you misstating the facts Senator? Now, or during the Primary?

Then there's the Senator's astonishing claim that Mr. Obama "did not say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad" without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no." [Emphasis mine]

Both Senators Obama and Biden are attorneys. Were either of them presented with a courtroom witness who made contradictory statements, both of them would question the credibility of the witness (Senator Biden in this case) by asking "Were you lying now or then?" It is fair for us to ask the same question, Senator Biden.

Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq.

Senator Biden apparently has a very narrow focus or he's makes this up as he goes. A bill may go through many incarnations during the legislative process. It is entirely possible at one point in the process, the bill contained language unacceptable to Senator McCain. This is very thin ice on which to claim that Senator McCain initially opposed the bill. The final result should be the judgment vote, and on that vote Senator McCain supported President Clinton.

Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant" in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie's closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr. Biden's attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe.

Shouldn't a Resident and a Senator who Represents the area know that a Wilmington Restaurant (Katie's) closed about 20 years ago? The impression Senator Biden was trying to portray gives us the impression he frequents Katie's Restaurant to get the "feel of the common man". Clearly, Senator Biden is not that connected to the people.