Gaffes don't explain Joe Biden's biggest problem. Most all of us make them, although likely not quite so often or cognitively concerning. I'm referring here to episodes like mistaking his sister for his wife; confusing British Prime Minister Theresa May with her long-ago predecessor Margret Thatcher; saying that "poor kids are just as talented as white kids;" or insisting that Democrats should "choose truth over facts."
Perhaps even more troubling, former Senator/Vice President Biden has a long history of fundamental character problems in discerning differences of facts from truths. Here are some easily fact-checkable examples:
Presidential candidate Biden claimed during a 1987 New Hampshire campaign stump that he had attended law school on a full scholarship, graduated in the top half of his class, attained three degrees with 165 credits that only required 123, and was named "outstanding political science student."
As later corrected, Biden had received a one-half scholarship, obtained one degree, ranked number 76 out of 85 University of Syracuse Law School graduates, and never received a political science award. In fact, he was nearly kicked out of law school for plagiarizing five pages of a paper written by another student. Biden later explained that his memory had simply failed him.
In 1987, while campaigning for president at the Ohio State Fair, Biden famously plagiarized a fiery speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock, along with another by Robert Kennedy.
During a New Hampshire stump speech that same year, Biden claimed that when a high school senior in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he had marched and participated in civil rights sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie houses in Wilmington, Delaware. That never happened.
In 2014, Biden embellished that story, adding that he had trained as a civil rights activist attending Sunday morning services at the Black Union Baptist Church in Wilmington, Delaware after first participating in an earlier 7:30 a.m. mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Greenville.
Then-Sen. Biden said in 2007 that he was "shot at" during the Iraq War while visiting the American Green Zone in Baghdad where the U.S. Embassy is based. In reality, a mortar had landed several hundred yards away from his hotel.
In 2008, Biden said that he knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding because his helicopter had been "forced down" nearby in mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Biden's helicopter had actually landed as a safety precaution to wait out a snowstorm.
Biden spun another elaborate yarn about traveling into a perilous combat zone in Afghanistan to pin a Silver Star of heroism on a U.S. Navy captain who had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire to retrieve the body of a fallen soldier. According to the story, Biden responded to Obama security advisers who said the trip was too dangerous, saying "We can lose a vice president. We can't lose many more of these kids. Not a joke."
Biden then quoted the medal recipient, "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!"
Biden then added, "This is God's truth! My word as a Biden!"
Except that it didn't happen. The heroic service member he referred to was a much younger and lower ranking Army specialist who received a Medal of Honor pinned on by President Obama – not by the V.P.
Biden said in 2008 during 1993 meetings in Serbia he had called then-President Slobodan Milosevic a "damn war criminal" to his face. No one who attended the meetings recalled that event having occurred.
He claimed that while vice president, he met with families of Parkland, Florida High School shooting victims. Yet the murders occurred in February 2018, more than a year after Biden left that office.
More recently, Biden falsely boasted on February 11 of this year that he "had the great honor of being arrested" in the 1970s, along with America's former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, in Johannesburg, South Africa, while trying to get to see imprisoned anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela. No such arrest occurred.
During a televised Breakfast Club interview hosted by "Charlemagne tha God," Biden blamed President Trump for waiting too long following discovery of the COVID-19 threat to shut down travel with China. Biden said, "If he had listened to me and others, and acted one week earlier to deal with this virus, there'd be 36,000 fewer people dead. Dead! Dead! And you guys are wondering, what's he doing? Come on, Man! Get a life! Get a life!"
Biden apparently forgot having previously attacked Trump's January 31 China travel as "hysterical xenophobia."
Speaking of China, the former vice president has yet to explain why as top Obama administration point person for the country, his son Hunter, who accompanied him on a 2013 trip to Beijing on Air Force Two, scored a $1 billion Chinese government private equity deal for his no-experience start-up company two weeks later.
Vice President Biden was also the lead U.S. Ukraine policy official when he boasted about successfully threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to the country if they didn't fire a prosecutor looking into corruption of the country's largest private gas producer where son Hunter — again no related business credentials — was serving in a highly lucrative no-show director position.
Biden asserts that he wasn't aware of that profitable family arrangement either. He never asked, because, he said, "I trust my son." So we shouldn't wonder either.
What about Biden's new "Build Back Better" campaign slogan? It sounds very similar to an April 22 U.N. proposal calling on all governments "to seize the opportunity to "build back better" by creating more sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies." Do we read this as pushing the "Green New Deal"?
As for candidate Biden's recent "Buy America" pitch, it sounds very similar to a Trump initiative, after the Obama administration said that the American jobs it transferred overseas weren't coming back. They were proved wrong.
All of this leads us to inevitable questions. Who is the real Joe Biden, and who will he be tomorrow?
And why would a person who repeatedly reinvents their own past possibly be entrusted to guise our entire nation's future?
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. Larry has written more than 600 articles for Newsmax and Forbes and is the author of several books. Included are: "How Everything Happened, Including Us" (2020), "Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure and Our Future" (2020), "The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives" (2019), "Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity" (2019), "Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations" (2018), "Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful" (2017), "Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self" (2016), "Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom" (2015) and "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax" (2011). He is currently working on a new book with Buzz Aldrin, "Beyond Footprints and Flagpoles." Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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