The press has an aversion to accountability when it comes to Joe Biden these days. He can tell any damn lie in the world and they're okay with it. At least three times this month he has spouted this fiction: "I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see [Nelson Mandela] . . ..” He said he was arrested "on the streets of Soweto." The lie also included this: Nelson Mandela "threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me'.”
None of that ever happened.
Nicholas Wu (USA TODAY) reports:
Former Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged Friday he had not been arrested in apartheid South Africa when visiting Nelson Mandela in prison in the 1970s, despite previously saying so on the campaign trail.
"I said arrested. I meant I was not able to move," he told CNN. "I guess I wasn't arrested. I was stopped. I wasn't able to go where I wanted to go."
His correction to the story caps off a controversy over the origins of an account fact-checkers at the Washington Post had called "ridiculous."
“I had the great honor of meeting him,” Biden said while campaigning in South Carolina, according to a New York Times story this month. “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him.”
Joe lies and then he lies about his lies and the press lets him get away with it.
He said he was arrested on the streets. Now he's pretending like he was using the term 'arrested' differently. Were that cheap evasion actually true, it still doesn't explain why he said he was arrested on the streets. Veronica Stracqualursi and Sarah Mucha (CNN):
"This day 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on (Robben) Island," Biden said at his South Carolina Launch Party in Columbia earlier this month.
On February 16, Biden said that he "got arrested trying to see" Nelson Mandela in prison, and on February 18, he said the same thing again as part of a story about trying to get his wife, Jill, to marry him.
The New York Times could not find any mention of an arrest in a review of news accounts, and a former United States ambassador to the United Nations, who had joined Biden on that trip, rebutted Biden's account to the newspaper.
He lied. He got caught. Now he lies to cover his lie. And the original lie was told repeatedly:
Biden had claimed on multiple occasions in recent weeks that he was arrested three decades ago as he sought to visit Mandela on a trip to South Africa.
“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid,” Biden said at a campaign event in South Carolina, as reported by The New York Times. “I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”
At another event in Las Vegas, he said that Mandela thanked him for getting arrested.
“After he got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office,” Biden said, according to the Times. “He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.’”
After the Times noted that there was no mention of his arrest in Biden’s memoir, and no references to an arrest of the then-Delaware senator in contemporary news accounts, it drew greater scrutiny. The Washington Post’s fact-checker branded the claim, as well as the claim that Mandela later thanked him for the move, as “ridiculous.”
“Biden has never been shy about tooting his own horn. So it’s pretty surprising that on the eve of a primary critical to his election hopes, he suddenly recalls being arrested in South Africa — and being thanked by Mandela for being arrested,” the Posts’s Glenn Kessler wrote. “There is no evidence for either claim; neither appears remotely credible.”
He is a liar. POLITICO:
In Biden’s campaign trail retelling, Mandela later thanked him for getting arrested while attempting to see him during that trip, the timing of which has also been disputed by fact-checkers.
NY POST:
During his launch party in Columbia, South Carolina, this month, Biden said: “I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see (Mandela) on (Robben) Island.”
He repeated the claim at least two other times, including when recounting a story about trying to get his future wife, Jill, to marry him.
During a Feb. 16 event in Nevada, Biden said that as president of South Africa, Mandela visited him in Washington.
“He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me,'” Biden said.
He is a damn liar. And you are supposed to hold the powerful accountable if you are the press. He told this lie over and over.
And if you don't think he's a liar -- well that just leaves one alternative: Senility.
Liar or senile, he's not fit to be president and it's a damn shame the press wants to pretend that these invented tales are cute or charming.
