Biden the Liar

[SuperScout]

When Joe Biden tells voters he understands the threat posed by Afghan extremists, he dramatically illustrates one reason why: His helicopter was "forced down" on "the superhighway of terror." Actually, snow, not the enemy, persuaded the helicopter pilot to land and wait out a storm.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate has repeatedly left that part out, in an episode that Republicans hope will become an echo of Hillary Rodham Clinton's errant tale during the primaries of landing in Bosnia under sniper fire.
Biden has made a number of questionable statements recently that, viewed in isolation, might not amount to much. But this is a man whose first presidential campaign collapsed 20 years ago after he told a story about coal miners in his family that he lifted without credit from a British politician. In a recent speech in Virginia coal country, Biden seemed to embellish his background once again. He declared, "I am a hard coal miner," which he's not and never has been. His spokesman, David Wade, said Biden was joking. [No, he got caught in yet another lie, and is trying to spin his way out of it.]

And looking back on his 1972 Senate campaign, he told Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic convention that people from his hometown of Scranton, Pa., piled in up to 10 buses and drove to Wilmington, Del., to show him support. "Literally," he said, "there were hundreds of thousands of people."
THE HELICOPTER SPIN
In a Baltimore speech last week, Biden said: "If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where (Usama) bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
Two days later, in Cincinnati, he said Al Qaeda has re-established a safe haven and it's not in Baghdad. "It's in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said, "where my helicopter was recently forced down."
At a Sept. 9, fundraiser, Biden addressed his national security credentials by talking about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. John McCain wants to know where bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That's where Al Qaida is. That's where bin Laden is."
THE FACTS: In February, Biden and fellow senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were flying in a helicopter over Afghanistan in a fact-finding trip when a snowstorm closed in.
"It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges," Kerry told The Associated Press afterward. "So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed."
He said the group waited for about three hours until a convoy with U.S. troops took them to Bagram Air Base.
"We sat up there and traded stories," Kerry joked. "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it."
He added: "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
The area was reported as not being under Taliban control. But Wade noted "it's the wild west out there" and the senators were transported under guard and with air cover from an F-16.
Though Biden never said his helicopter was shot at in Afghanistan, last year he asserted that he was "shot at" in Iraq. He amended that later, saying the quarters he was staying in while visiting Baghdad's protected Green Zone shook from a nearby blast, and "I was near where a shot landed."
The McCain campaign jumped on the Biden stories Wednesday, putting out a statement from a retired Black Hawk pilot saying there is no mistaking being shot at or forced down by the enemy.
But if Biden was not literally in the sights of the enemy in Iraq, he unquestionably went through several dicey situations verified by other lawmakers there, including the explosion of a mortar near the compound and his plane's evasive maneuvers while taking off, in response to a possible missile attack.
THE COAL SPIN: In a speech at a United Mine Workers fish fry in Castlewood, Va., on Sept. 21, Biden told the miners he is one of them. "Hope you won't hold it against me, but I am a hard coal miner — anthracite coal, Scranton, Pennsylvania, that's where I was born and raised," he said.
Biden mentioned his great-grandfather, a mining engineer who became a state senator in the early 1900s.
THE FACTS: Biden was born in Scranton, moved to Delaware at age 10 and has never had experience in the mines. His father worked in the oil business and ran a Delaware car dealership.
Biden's comment was reported at face value in press accounts from the event. Wade said it wasn't meant to be taken literally.
"Judging by the laughter and applause, I think it was clear to everyone under the sun that they got the joke from this son of Scranton's coal country," Wade said. An AP reporter who covered the speech said Biden's claim came across as a genial if awkwardly self-deprecating effort to establish a bond with the miners — not a joke.
In his 2007 memoirs, Biden put his roots in a more modest context: "I had ancestors from the coal mining town of Scranton."
In 1987 at the Iowa State Fair, Biden both borrowed and slightly adapted lines from Neil Kinnock, then British Labor Party leader, in portraying himself as the descendant of coal miners. In one of the lifted lines, Biden talked about: "My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours."
(Kinnock had talked about Welsh ancestors "who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football.")
Biden also was found to have exaggerated his academic record during that campaign and a plagiarism episode from his school days emerged. The revelations crippled his Democratic primary campaign and he pulled out of the presidential race.
Years later, the matter leaves him little room to take license with his biography or experiences

[darrels joy]

JOE BIDEN’S 14 LIES TONIGHT


1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.


2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.


3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”


4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.


5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.


6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.


7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people's health insurance coverage -- they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false


8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska -- she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it's not a windfall profits tax.


9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.


10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation -- he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.


11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.


12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.


13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”


14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won't pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.

JOE BIDEN
The Biden Error/Lie/Hallucination List (UPDATED to 22)

Below, you’ll find a list of 14 “lies” Biden told last night, distributed by the McCain campaign. I’d just note two observations: first, when you tell stories of things that didn’t happen with the frequency of Joe Biden, coupled with his fervent belief of these untrue and inaccurate statements, I don’t think “lie” is the appropriate term. “Hallucinations” seems more accurate, I think. Second, they missed a bunch, so Biden’s list of li- er, hallucinations is well beyond 14. THE CONSTITUTION: Biden: "Vice President Cheney's been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. He has — he has — the idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the executive — he works in the executive branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that."
As noted by the McCain Camp, Article I of the Constitution does not, in fact, define the role of the Vice President of the United States. It defines the role of the legislative branch, otherwise known as the branch in which Joe Biden has served for the last 36 years.
[A reader writes in noting that Article I does mention the veep at one point — "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." However, by describing the veep's role in the legislature, it doesn't really help Biden's claim that it "defines the role, that's the executive, he works in the executive branch."]

IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN SPENDING: Biden said that the U.S. spends more in Iraq in one month than it has in Afghanistan in six or seven years.
That figure is off by 2000 percent.
‘KICKED HEZBOLLAH OUT OF LEBANON’: Biden: 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.”
Reuters thinks he meant to refer to Syria, but I still don't think it would be accurate to say the U.S. kicked Syria out of Lebanon. The Lebanese kicked Syria out of Lebanon.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT: Biden's statement that McCain voted against the Violence Against Women Act is accurate. But as Robert Byers notes, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Morrison, the Court ruled that much of Biden's law was an unconstitutional power grab by Congress of rights reserved to the states. Nobody voted against the WAWA because they support violence against women; they objected over constiutional concerns that a Supreme Court majority validated.

The McCain camp's list fourteen lies/hallucinations can be found here.
UPDATE: As I suspected, there are others.
RESTAURANT: "Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years."
According to this Delaware site, Katie's Restaurant is no longer in business; locals remember it on Union Street 25 to 30 years ago.
ARMS CONTROL TREATY: Biden: "Number two, with regard to arms control and weapons, nuclear weapons require a nuclear arms control regime. John McCain voted against a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that every Republican has supported."
I have no idea where Biden gets this "every Republican has supported" claim, as 49 other Republican senators voted 'no' with McCain.

When the roll was finally called on October 13, the resolution to ratify the CTBT (including the six safeguards that Daschle had submitted as an amendment) was defeated by a 51-48 vote with one abstention. (See the voting record.) Forty-four Democrats voted for ratification as did four Republicans: John Chafee (R-RI), James Jeffords (R-VT), Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). Fifty Republican senators and one independent (Robert Smith of New Hampshire) voted against ratification, and Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) voted "present." The treaty fell 19 votes short of achieving the necessary two-thirds majority necessary for ratification.

WEST BANK ELECTIONS: Biden: President Bush insisted on elections in the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.'"
The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler notes that "Obama had been a senator for only a few days when the election took place, but if he made such statements, they did not appear in news reports or transcripts that are contained in the Nexis or Factiva databases."
PAKISTANI WEAPONS: "Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean."

I won't quite chalk this up as a lie/hallucination, but Biden is on shaky ground here. (See below.) The distance between Israel and Pakistan is 2,085 miles, or 3355 kilometers. The longest-range existing strategic missile in the Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction has a range of 3000 kilometers, but it might have longer range with a lighter payload. (But how much can you lighten a nuclear payload?) They are working on developing longer-range missiles; maybe Biden knows of some development that public sources do not yet know about. Theoretically, the Pakistanis could put the weapon on a boat and then sail it to the target, but by that standard, any site on a coast in the world is within their range.
ANOTHER UPDATE: This site indicates that the top range of Pakistani missile that can carry a nuclear warhead is 1000 miles. By being off by 1,000 or so, I'm now upgrading this to full lie/error/hallucination status.

[darrels joy]

Which Restaurant Was That Joe?

Posted by: Curt @ 6:39 pm in Joe Biden
Visited 36 times, 36 so far today
The man is just a liar:

BIDEN: Can I respond? Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie’s Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there’s a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.
Look, the people in my neighborhood, they get it. They get it.

Only problem is that those people in his neighborhood existed in the 1980’s….not today:

But I checked The News Journal archives this morning and, well, don’t plan on trying to find it on Union Street anytime soon. And I wonder if the Katie’s today, which is now actually Wings to Go at Katies, is the same Katie’s that Joe remembers…..
Katie’s was at the corner of Sixth and Scott streets in Wilmington’s Little Italy neighborhood. (Not Union Street.) It had been a local and much-loved institution, well known for its rich, thick Italian gravy (tomato sauce) and spaghetti. It was opened in 1936 by Silvio Spiezio, who later sold it in 1945. The Fugilino family owned and ran the restaurant for years until it was sold in the 1981 after Frances Mae Fugilino’s death.
Katie’s then changed hands again in 1985, but new owners kept the venerable name.
But it eventually changed hands again - at least 10 years ago, maybe even more like 15 years ago.

Ryan Cormier with more:

Towards the end of last night’s Joe Biden/Sarah Palin debate, Joe Biden said this: “All you have to do is to go down Union Street with me in Wilmington and go to Katie’s restaurant…”
It caught me off guard, as well as our food guru Patty Talorico.
She investigated a bit and realized Biden was referring to the long-closed Katie’s Italian restaurant, which is actually two blocks away from Union Street.
The establishment is now a Wings to Go.
Talorico’s blog post has been picked up by the John McCain campaign, along with The National Review, New York magazine and others.
For a guy running as an in-touch-with-the-real-people candidate, it’s hard to believe he not only referenced a restaurant that has been closed for nearly 20 years, but also got the location wrong!
I just called the owner of Wings to Go, Nate Johnson, who verified that Katie’s closed in the late ’80s.
“He was a little off,” Johnson said of Biden.

Just a bit.
If he wanted to have us believe he sits down with the folks in his neighborhood to shoot the shite and they complain about the economy under Bush then at least make up a restaurant that is still standing…
Geez…

[darrels joy]

The VP Debate: Biden's Distortions


Joe Biden is getting credit for being more “factual” and substantive than Sarah Palin in last night’s debate. He shouldn’t. A good deal of what Biden said was exaggerated, distorted or simply false — especially in his nominal area of expertise, foreign policy.

Let’s start with Iraq. Biden claimed that John McCain was the “odd man out” in his plans for the war, while the Bush administration and the Iraqi government had adopted the strategy of Barack Obama. The truth is just the opposite. The administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are still negotiating about the future of the U.S. troop presence, but according to the latest reports they are close to settling on a target date for withdrawal at the end of 2011. That’s a year and a half after Obama’s 16-month timetable would run out. More importantly, Bush, Maliki, U.S. commanders and McCain all agree that the pullout should be “conditions-based” -- it should go forward only as Iraqi forces are able to take over.

As Biden confirmed last night, the Obama pullout is not based on conditions; his theory is that the timetable will force action by Iraqis, rather than the other way around. When he visited Iraq in July, Obama was candid enough to confirm that Gen. David Petraeus, Maliki and leaders of the Sunni militia forces all opposed his strategy. On Iraq, he remains the odd man out.

Biden also charged that the United States spends more in Iraq in three weeks than it has in total in Afghanistan. As Chris Wilson of Slate points out, that comes close to being true only if total U.S. spending in Iraq is compared only with non-military spending in Afghanistan -- and even then it’s not true. The United States spends about $8 billion in three weeks in Iraq, compared with a total of $12 billion in non-military spending since 2001 in Afghanistan. In total, Congress has authorized $172 billion in spending for Afghanistan -- or about 61 weeks of spending in Iraq.

Biden said he could find no difference between McCain and Bush on policy toward Israel, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He’s right -- there is no real difference. But what he failed to disclose is that there is also no significant difference between Obama’s proposals for those countries and what the Bush administration is doing. Biden denied that Obama agreed to meet unconditionally with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There he was both right and wrong: Obama did say he would do so in answer to a debate question more than a year ago, but he has since hedged his position considerably. As a practical matter, it’s very unlikely Obama would meet Ahmadinejad if he became president.

Lastly, Biden asserted that both he and Obama had opposed the staging of Palestinian legislative elections in 2005, and had predicted that if they were held Hamas would win. In fact, while Obama signed a letter (with more than 90 other senators) expressing concern that Hamas would participate in the election without disarming, he did not predict the Hamas victory. And Biden did not sign the letter; indeed, he served as an observer at the election that he now says should not have gone forward.

By Jackson Diehl | October 3, 2008; 12:37 PM ET | Category: Diehl

Previous: In the Cold Light of Morning: Veep Debate Not a Game Changer | Next: The VP Debate: Odd Moments
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/pos...distortio.html

[darrels joy]

To Steve and Peter's Points [Andy McCarthy]


1. Peter, I'm sure — or maybe President Bartlett will appoint a commission to investigate the predatory lending that caused this crisis.

2. I would just add the following to Steve's excellent "How to explain Fannie & Freddie simply and in 30 seconds or less":

Executive compensation:

Franklin Raines (Obama adviser and Fannie CEO 1999-2004): $90 million
Jim Johnson (Obama adviser and Fannie CEO 1991-1998): $21 million in 1998 alone — which, as Byron has detailed, was initially concealed from the public) (I haven't been able to find, in a quick search, how many more millions he made from 1991-1997)

Jamie Gorelick (former Clinton administration Deputy AG & Fannie vice chair 1998-2003): $26 million.

Campaign Contributions

Barack Obama, though only in the Senate since 2004, took in $126,349 from Fannie & Freddie (second only to Sen. Chris Dodd, $165,400 — whose collections go back to 1989).

Taxpayer Liability Increase

Potentially $5 trillion.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...2ViODY4ZjIzZjc=

[Seascamp]

My bad, at one time I reckoned that Biden had a credible message and so stated here at PF. Lesson on the plate;dig deeper, do the homework and get to reality. That guy is nothing but a silly-ass contrivance that doesn’t recognize that reality is far more beneficial than some fabricated sea story of daring-do frabbadaba. Aarrggg, my bad.

Scamp

[darrels joy]

Obama meets Shalom, offers support for Israel

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Printable Format
The Associated Press
Published January 10, 2006, 12:15 PM CST

JERUSALEM -- Democratic Sen. Barack Obama met Tuesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and said the United States stood by Israel as its leader, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, lay unconscious in a hospital bed following a massive stroke.

Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke to reporters after a meeting with Shalom, on the latest leg of a 10-day tour of the Middle East that included visits to Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

"Obviously we are here at a difficult time," Obama, D-Ill., said. "Our hearts go out to the family of Prime Minister Sharon and we are praying for a recovery on his part and I think the entire world is watching because we recognize that his presence here in the entire process was absolutely important and constructive."

Obama said he was visiting the region to learn more than tell leaders his opinion.

"Israel has to figure out what the next steps are, if in fact Prime Minister Sharon does not recover in a way that allows him to move into the government," he said.

Obama said he was encouraged about the "growing consensus around a principle of moving peace forward if there is a responsible partner on the other side," and was looking forward to the results of the Palestinians' Jan. 25 elections and their aftermath.

"Violence is not the answer to the long-standing problems that exist in this area and my hope is that U.S. policy will continue to encourage the nonviolent mediation of these issues," he said.

http://obama.senate.gov/news/060110-obama_meets_sha/

[SuperScout]

Great research, Joy! And multiple thanks for digging out the Truth about Joe Biden, who by this time shouild be classified as a pathological liar. From stealing other's campaign material to falsifying law school transcripts to openly and brazening lying in this campaign makes him unfit for any office.

Palin Rules!!

[colmurph]

Originally Posted by SuperScout

Great research, Joy! And multiple thanks for digging out the Truth about Joe Biden, who by this time shouild be classified as a pathological liar. From stealing other's campaign material to falsifying law school transcripts to openly and brazening lying in this campaign makes him unfit for any office.

Palin Rules!!

Didn't I tell you guys that this guy was a "Post Turtle"?

If you go back and search the boards, I believe I reported a few years ago about Biden's opposition to the 50% buy of a corporation that owned Deleware River Stevedores. Biden told the public that "The Arabs will be running the Port of Wilmington". DRS (Delaware River Stevedores) never ran the Port, they were only a tennant company, just like the one I was Port Manager of. The State of Delaware runs the Port of Wilmington though the Diamond State Port Corporation (A Delaware State, wholly owned, entity) Neither Joe Biden, nor the Governor of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner (D), knew that the State ran the Port.

Good old Joe is so in touch with his home state and the city of Wilmington that he doesn't know that Katies Restaraunt closed in the 80's? Now there's a polititian who is really in touch with his constituants! How the hell can he represent the people of Delaware when he doesn't even know what's going on in Wilmington.

[SuperScout]

All Da Dims were touting Joe Biden's 'experience' as a really great thing, but in fact, his experience factor is far overshadowed by his manipulation of facts, outright lying, and only telling the partial truth. So experience is so much bunk - integrity trumps experience every time. After dissecting his performance vs. The Sarah Palin, all ol' Joe can be called is a lying POS.