Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to brush off criticism that he flubbed the details of a moving war hero story that he’s used on the campaign trail to make a “point about a generation.”
As I have said before, this story is not about Biden becoming senile or committing a gaffe. This is a story about his being let down by his staff. The story was part of his regular stump speech. You would expect a stump speech to be completely vetted. That didn’t happen here. His speech writer let him down. His campaign manager let him down. He let himself down buy not catching the absurdity of a naval captain climbing down a rope.
It is the kind of lazy campaigning we have always experienced when Biden runs for President. It says something about the man and the seriousness of his approach to a campaign.
Trump lies by the minute and this is the story you’re putting up?
Great job, everybody.
I like Joe. He’s not my favorite candidate, but I’ll vote for him if he gets nominated.
But when talk of his running first came up, I said to my husband, he was a great VP for Obama on many levels, and I liked him for that. But I don’t really want him to run – he just says stuff that turn into own goals and time and energy is wasted trying to straighten it out. Yes, I know everyone sometimes opens their mouths before engaging their brains, but he seems to do it proportionally more often. You can eyeroll when he’s VP, but you sure can’t when he’s the candidate in probably the most important fight of our lives (the nation hangs in balance, literally).
Sigh.
Maybe the most dangerous thing Trump has done is to wage war on the concept of truth. Democrats have to differentiate themselves from Trump on this. No, Joe, it’s not irrelevant. It’s crucial.
Joe? Drop the frigging shovel. Stop digging.
Good for Biden. Whatever his vulnerabilities as a candidate, this is a ridiculous, lame would-be false-equivalence story, and I’m glad to see him feistily defending both himself and the overall validity of the original point he was making. Maybe the media should try investigating the authenticity of the many “sir” whoppers DT’s told, in which the point is usually somehow to glorify DT himself.
Biden did not try to embellish a story to make himself look good. He does not try to piggyback on the valor of others for political purpose like Trump does. His July 4th speech was a great example.
Biden’s gaffe is minor compared to Trump’s:
“Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it[ took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rocket’s red glare it had nothing but victory.”
“I was making a point about a generation. That has nothing to do with a judgment of whether or not you send troops to war, the judgment of whether you bring someone home, the judgment of whether or not you decide on a health care policy. You understand that,” Biden told NPR in Iowa over the weekend.
Remember: Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War. Dems are already 0-2 with nominees who voted for the Iraq War.
The trouble is, Biden does this sort of thing a lot, and it suggests confusion. If he starts trailing off or otherwise mumbles or doesn’t finish sentences during a debate with Trump, such behavior might well lead undecided voters to vote for Trump. A lot of Trumpers simply look at their own lives, myopically to be sure, but they don’t see their own situations deteriorating. Make them the least bit unsure about someone’s faculties, and a certain number of them will go with Trump because he’s the devil they know.
Biden is correct of course: it’s a story about principles, details are irrelevant, any comparison to Trump or the GOP generally is gross false equivalency, undue attention to it is feckless reportage, all of it;
and yet it still matters.
This is a story about his being let down by his staff. The story was part of his regular stump speech.
Disagree. This is a story about a compliant lazy media trying desperately to fill ad space with ‘news’ till Congress returns. All they have to hold onto these days is Two Scoops tweeting and running his fat mouth. This is nothing more than a followup to a non-story.
It only matters because it’s something the Goopers can point at when Cheatolini’s lies are pointed out: “See?? Both sides do it!!!”
Good! Why doesn’t TPM shut the fuck up about it then? Unless you’re pursuing an undisclosed agenda.
Thump’s lies are not the point here. The point is whether Biden, a sloppy campaigner who is unwilling to admit a mistake, is the best the Democrats have to put up against Trump. If you want to be able to run (in part) against Trump’s lies, you might want someone who doesn’t flub the facts to do it. And I just don’t buy that Biden is uniquely suited to heal the country and our relations with allies.
I have to agree that this story reflects a laziness on the part of the press. It was a one day story that the press has stretched into three, but I think it is important because it reflects the lack of seriousness Biden can demonstrate on the campaign trail. We have seen this twice before. I don’t know if it reflects the kind of entitlement that infects a lot of moderate Democrats or if it is personal to Joe.
Mostly agree, but I do have a hard time entirely getting past the notion of diminished faculties on Biden’s part. He keeps telling us how important this election is. And it is, of course. But if he really believes that, then you’d think he’d bring as much concentration and focus as he has to bear on getting things right.
Biden was told by his staff not to talk about how well he worked with segregationists. Biden didn’t listen.
AFAIK, there is no reason to believe that his staff did not vet the story, and told Biden there was a problem. There is absolutely no question that Biden embellishes the story in its telling (despite claiming its “God’s truth. My word as a Biden”); in other words, Biden knows that the story as he tells it is untrue at the time he tells it.
As I’ve said before, the story is “performance”. Its stand-up tragedy. It has nothing to do with Biden’s leadership or qualifications to be president. Its all about getting the audience to approve of the soldier, and then having that approval transferred to Biden. (In the climax of the story, Biden assumes the role of the soldier himself with exaggerated passion.)
A truthful retelling of one of the stories would be far less dramatic --and would not result in the audience equating the Biden with the soldier. So Biden makes stuff up.
And if Trump were doing it, his defenders would call it truthful hyperbole, and we’d call it a lie.
this is exactly wrong. As I note above, the sole point of the story is to make the audience feel good about the soldier, and then transfer that feeling to Biden. That’s why he goes over-the-top melodramatic at the end, and assumes the persona of the soldier.
Its why actors are so popular. When they play likable characters, that “likability” translates into fandom, regardless of whether the actor him/herself is a good person.
We’re in the process of evaluating which of our potential candidates is best not only to defeat Trump, but to actually be President. Of course this isn’t as bad as Trump, but none of our candidates are. If “not as bad as Trump” is your only bar, you’re not going to be much help in picking a nominee. Not getting an easily researched and verified story like this right is either overconfident and sloppy campaigning, or a cognitive failure. Either one is worrisome.
Trump has irrevocably changed the whole dynamic. This particular business will not reduce Biden’s support one iota as his supporters say: “now do Trump.”