So not only will we get more dementia-induced gibberish from Joe Biden as the campaign season progresses, but we can also look forward to more repackagings of debunked Biden heroics.
Yesterday, the former vice president once again spun the myth that he was arrested in South Africa while attempting to see Nelson Mandela in prison.
As the New York Times reported back in February when they had their sights on other Democratic presidential prospects and didn’t feel the urge to run interference for the now-likely nominee:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
In at least three campaign appearances over the past two weeks, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has told a similar story as he tries to revive his campaign in states with more diverse voters. On a trip to South Africa years ago, he has said, he was arrested as he sought to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.
But if any of this really happened, the Times writers ponders, why isn’t the story mentioned in his 2007 memoir, which contains an account of a trip he took to South Africa in the 1970s?
The Times didn’t stop at just questioning the veracity of Biden’s story. They spoke with phoning former U.N Ambassador Andrew Young, who was with Biden on the South Africa trip. Said Young:
No, I was never arrested and I don’t think he was, either. Now, people were being arrested in Washington. I don’t think there was ever a situation where congressmen were arrested in South Africa.
In his latest retelling, however, Biden presents the Mandela incident in a bizarre context. Have a look.
Finally, I said — and you’ll appreciate this because we’re all from immigrant past — my mother would say ‘they got my Irish up.’ I came back — I came back from South Africa trying to see Nelson Mandela and getting arrested for trying to see him on Robben Island; he was in prison. And when I came back, first thing I did, I landed in Philadelphia and I went back to her apartment, which is in Wilmington, Delaware, She was teaching. And I knocked on her door and she said ‘oh, Joe, come on in, you’ve been gone for” — I said ‘no, no, I’m not coming in.’ I said, ‘you finally got my Irish up.’
What does the common expression “getting one’s Irish up” have to do with Biden’s putative visit to see Mandela?
As for Biden’s cognitive decline, he had another minor brain fart at his press conference on Tuesday when he was asked about his position on removing statues. At 49:08 in the video that follows, he tells his listeners:
Don’t be surprised if someone pulls down a statue of Jefferson Davis. It’s better that they do not, but it’s fundamentally different than pulling down the statue or going into the Lincoln Memorial and trying to pull ah— you know— not Lincoln Memorial. That’s a bad example. The Jefferson Memorial and grabbing Jefferson off his chair.
But Thomas Jefferson’s statue in his memorial is not seated. (RELATED: Biden: ‘I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive ability’ to Trump’s)
