Palin In Context: Let’s Take A Closer Look At Her Competition, Joe Biden — An Intellectual Nonentity
Palin In Context: Let’s Take A Closer Look At Her Competition, Joe Biden — An Intellectual Nonentity
by
Ken Eliasberg
In my last column I just addressed — fairly superficially, I might add - the essential unfairness of the treatment accorded Sarah Palin by an assortment of people, ranging from McCain staffers to some of the more distinguished members of our cognoscente on both sides of the aisle. In this column I would like to put that criticism into some sort of meaningful context, i.e. what standards are the critics employing in rendering their criticism. Or, as Henny Youngman used to put it when someone asked him how was his wife, — “compared to who.” Specifically, let’s shift the spotlight to Sarah’s opposition — Joe Biden. In any light, Sarah Palin looks darn good. But when compared to and contrasted with Joe Biden, she looks like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Biden is, quite simply, a narcissistic nincompoop, not to mention an almost pathological liar and a one-man gaffe machine While I understand that he is considered a pleasant fellow, by many in Washington he is viewed as something between a joke and a jerk (and the two are certainly not mutually exclusive).
Permit me to provide a brief walk down Biden’s memory lane, with specific attention to be paid to his intelligence, his integrity, and his experience.
Biden has always been intellectually challenged. He graduated in the bottom 10% of a third tier law school (Syracuse Law School; no offense intended here — to Syracuse — just the facts). And then proceeded to lie about it, telling reporters that he graduated in the top half of the class, having attended on a full academic scholarship (actually, he attended on a partial financial-needs scholarship). He alleged that he had 3 undergraduate degrees, when he had but one, with 2 majors. He plagiarized in one of his classes, received an F, and was forced to repeat the course. On being questioned about his academic record, he responded to his questioner by asserting that he had a higher I.Q. than the person asking the question (how’s that for a statesman-like response?). Now I’m not making an issue of his position in the class — indeed, John McCain’s position in his class was even lower, but at least he was honest about this, dealing with it in either a self-effacing or self-deprecating manner. Biden gave clear evidence of his lack of integrity by seeking to conceal this truth, and Biden has lied regularly, frequently, and consistently over the course of his rather undistinguished career. And we can take a look at some of those in the course of this discussion. Biden’s lies are the same type of self-aggrandizing lies as those told by Al Gore. You know, the type of lie that a very insecure, relatively unaccomplished, self-important person tells to create the image of membership in an elilte group that is actually way over his head — to be distinguished from more venal transgressions. David Horowitz, in contrasting Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s misstatements, put it this way: Bill Clinton lies to help himself; Al Gore lies because he can’t help himself (you know, he invented the internet; love story was about him and Tipper, etc.). These are the fabrications in which little boys engage in an effort to inflate their empty intellectual balloons.
All right, his law school indiscretions can be written off as a folly of youth, which, absent repetition, can be understandably dismissed. However, Biden has never stopped lying or, for that matter, plagiarizing. When he ran for President in 1988, he was caught once again “borrowing” the lines of a more accomplished British politician, Neil Kinnock. By the way, he did as well in his 1988 run as he did in his 2008 run, i.e. he got almost no votes — I guess the common man recognizes a “pretender” when he sees one.
His career is a monument to dishonesty — nothing major, just an unending stream of baloney. Indeed, in his debate with Palin, it was noted that he told 14 lies; now that’s an awful lot of dishonesty to pack in to an hour and a half. Of course the media is always there to give him cover; if Sarah Palin had told but one minor fib, it would have been front page at the N.Y. Times.
In short, Biden is a chronic liar.
How about Gaffes?When Biden is not just being a gasbag — i.e. Biden just being Biden — he is a gaffe bag! I don’t think anyone in the history of politics — at least to the extent of my familiarity with that history — has committed as many gaffes as Joe Biden. Again, these are all in an effort to inflate his resume and make him look important. As in the case of his taking liberties with the truth, his gaffes are far more child-like than venal, but at some point you would think that Biden might have outgrown the need to impress people in this manner. But no, he is so fundamentally insecure that all that he can offer is pretext. But again, the Press is always there to bail him out; on the rare occasion when they are forced to acknowledge that Joe has goofed once again, they do so by merely passing it off as that’s just Joe being Joe. Let me repeat 3 of his more recent gaffes. First, in addressing the current economic situation, he observed that what this country needs is a “3 letter” word — JOBS! Well, he was