Once of the problems with being a “storyteller” like Joe Biden is that if your memory isn’t razor-sharp, you run the risk of repeating a tall tale that has been debunked. We saw this in a New York Times article from February 2020 noting that Biden had again “recounted a story about being arrested on his way to see Nelson Mandela.” This was a period before the Times began shilling for Biden, so its editors felt free to tell the truth.
As I wrote last May:
The reporters took the added precaution of phoning former U.N Ambassador Andrew Young, who traveled with Biden over the years, including to South Africa. “No, I was never arrested and I don’t think he was, either,” Young told them.
On Thursday, Biden was at it again, this time reviving an old claim that he had once been “shot at” overseas. Via Fox News reports that the president was addressing a group of diplomatic aides at the State Department when he said, “You have great personal courage. I’ve been with some of you when we’ve been shot at.”
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The story appears to have its origins in a 2007 Democratic presidential debate. The context is rather ironic:
“Let’s start telling the truth,” he said. “Number one, you take all the troops out — you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die, number one.” [Emphasis added]
He amended that later, saying the quarters he was staying in while visiting the Green Zone in 2005 shook from a nearby blast, and “I was near where a shot landed.” He said that he’d been in three near-shooting instances, and in one instance, a shot had landed outside the building where he and other senators were staying. He added that the vehicle he was traveling in the day before might have also been hit.
So how close a call was it? Meh:
Biden said the incident wasn’t threatening enough to take cover. “No one got up and ran from the room — it wasn’t that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s not like I had someone holding a gun to my head.”
