If Sarah Palin had made just one of the wildly inaccurate statements smugly uttered by Sen. Joe Biden in last week's vice presidential debate, there would have been 3-inch headlines in newspapers across America. (I can almost hear Katie Couric asking me, "Which newspapers?")
These weren't insignificant errors, such as when Biden said, "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."
It turns out that Katie's restaurant, where Biden gets his feel for the average American, closed 20 years ago.
And
For example, Biden said about Hezbollah: "When we kicked -- along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon." Hezbollah was never kicked out of Lebanon.
And
Biden also stoutly denied that Obama ever said he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Liberals find it hilarious that McCain can't use a computer keyboard on account of his war injuries, but Biden is apparently unaware of the Internet, because there are clips all over the Internet of Obama saying exactly that during the CNN/YouTube debate last year.
Biden might have remembered that debate since: (1) He was there, and (2) he later attacked Obama's answer, telling the National Press Club in August 2007: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected president? Absolutely, positively, no."
And
Biden also gave a long speech at the debate on vice president Dick Cheney's "dangerous" belief that "he's part of the legislative branch." The great constitutional scholar Biden cited Article I of the Constitution as proof that Cheney "works in the executive branch" and has "no authority relative to the Congress." Biden huffily added: "He should understand that. Everyone should understand that."
Palin would have had to deny that Alaska is a state in the union in order to say something comparably stupid.
Article II, not I, describes the executive branch. Someone tell Biden, who is supposed to be a lawyer. Apart from getting the Articles of the Constitution mixed up, what on earth does Biden mean when he says that the vice president "has no authority relative to Congress," apart from breaking ties?
The Constitution makes him president of the senate every day of the week. I realize that Biden may not be able to count to two, but Article I says the vice president is president of one of the two houses of Congress -- the one Biden is in, for crying out loud -- which is what you might call "authority relative to Congress."
And
In one especially hallucinatory answer, Biden authoritatively stated: "With Afghanistan, facts matter, Gwen. ... We spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country."
According to the Congressional Research Service, since 9/11, we've spent $172 billion in Afghanistan and $653 billion in Iraq. The most money spent in Iraq came in 2008, when we have been spending less than $3 billion a week. So by Biden's calculations, we've spent only about $9 billion "on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country." There isn't even a "9" in $172 billion.
And
In the same answer, Biden went on to claim that "John McCain voted against a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that every Republican has supported."
The last nuclear test ban treaty the Senate voted on was the one Clinton signed in the '90s. As The New York Times editorialized on the Senate vote a few years later: "Last week, Senate Republicans thundered 'no' to the nuclear test ban treaty, handing the White House its biggest defeat since health care in 1994." Forty-nine Republicans voted against the treaty; only four liberal Republicans voted for it. That's the treaty Biden says "every Republican has supported."
The “fact check” article has become the latest way for reporters to inject their personal political opinion into the debate. So it’s really no wonder the Biden’s – shall we say – loose grasp of reality is not subject to press criticism.
This is mentioned only to underscore that during the waning days of this election, reporters at McCain/Palin events are seen as part of the opposition, and are treated as that. Iwonder if it feels different for them.
In the past, reporters were treated with deference because it was felt that one needed to get on their good side. When Conservatives finally realized that there was not “good side” of the MSM for them, the Right began to give as good as it got. If you’re going to get smeared by the press, you may as well make they feel uncomfortable in the process.
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