President Joe Biden's precarious relationship with the truth has long been the subject of much discussion, but now, even liberal “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post is taking him to task over his years of rhetorical embellishments, as Fox News reports.
Despite the Post's historically friendly approach to covering all things Biden, Kessler recently surveyed some of the president's most frequently repeated personal anecdotes and found their veracity to be in serious doubt.
House fire questioned
One of Biden's favorite stories to tell is that of a house fire that occurred years ago, which he describes as a dangerous conflagration that put many of his prized possessions at real risk of destruction.
According to Biden, the blaze nearly claimed the lives of multiple firefighters, left a “significant portion” of his house in ruins, and almost destroyed his 1967 Corvette.
However, as Kessler notes, news reports from the time in question characterized the incident as having been contained to the kitchen and indicated that the flames were under control within 20 minutes.
Amtrak falsities, civil rights curiosities
Kessler also discussed Biden's regularly regurgitated yarn about Amtrak conductor Angelo Negri, who supposedly praised him as having traveled 2 million miles on the rail system.
Unfortunately for the president, the conversation could not, as Kessler notes, unfolded in the manner he described, given that Biden did not surpass 1.2 million miles ridden on Amtrak until 2016, while Negri entered retirement back in 1993 and died two years before the conversation is supposed to have occurred.
Further undermining Biden's credibility, according to Kessler, are his often-repeated claims to have been deeply involved in his younger years in the struggle for civil rights.
Though Biden has publicly claimed to have faced arrest for standing on a porch with a Black couple that was being harassed for purchasing a home in a White neighborhood, Kessler's investigation found no evidence of such a display of solidarity.
Another Biden boast about having been arrested while attempting to visit South Africa's Nelson Mandela was also discredited by Kessler, further eroding the president's reputation for truth telling.
Prevaricator in chief
Writing earlier this summer for the Washington Times, Everett Piper opined that Biden's propensity for spinning falsehoods goes back decades and includes lies he told about his educational background, claims about his exposure to Black and Jewish churches in his youth, and his outright plagiarism.
Given that history, Piper says, it should come as no surprise that the president has no problem whatsoever telling the electorate a host of lies about the border, the economy, or his involvement in his son's foreign business deals, but for a liberal such as Kessler to point these things out in the midst of Biden's reelection campaign is perhaps a sign that a significant shift in media coverage could be underway.
