Democratic front-runner Joe Biden attempted this week to downplay concerns about his serial fabrications.
In doing so, the former vice president boasted that he would never be so terrible as to support a policy of placing illegal immigrant children in “cages” — a policy that the Obama administration, in which he served, absolutely did enforce.
Weirdly enough, our very brave and vigilant national news media either are unaware of Biden’s attempt to rewrite history or they just do not care. Reporters and commentators must be too distracted right now fighting with the president about his sharpie graffiti.
Appearing on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Biden sought Thursday to tamp down criticisms of his multiple verbal flubs and outright falsehoods, including a recent speech wherein he botched basically every detail about a meeting he had with a war hero.
“Those details are irrelevant. The point I was making was relevant,” the 2020 Democratic primary candidate told Stephen Colbert. “It’s a different thing to say, when you’re talking about honoring the bravery, or the sacrifice, or what other people went through, and the essence of it is absolutely true.”
“I was not talking about me,” Biden continued. “I was praising … the valor of all these people out there that I’ve visited in over 20 visits in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“The fact that I said that I was vice president,” he continued “well, in one case I was vice president-elect, the other case I was a senator. I’m not sure that’s relevant.”
Then Biden said this: “But I don’t get wrong things like, we should lock kids up in cages at the border.”
.@JoeBiden on his gaffes:
“I don’t get wrong things like, ‘we should lock kids up in cages.’” #LSSC pic.twitter.com/Nt3e0IhA6C
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) September 5, 2019
The CBS audience erupted with thunderous applause. This is awkward, considering that the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president for all eight years, also had a policy of locking up undocumented children.
That Biden should embrace a falsehood in defense of his other falsehoods is a story that our national press, which keeps telling me that the truth is “more important now than ever,” should be eager to cover.
Nope. No such luck. As of this writing, the only newsroom really to note the chasm between Biden’s applause line Thursday evening and the actual immigration policies enforced by the Obama administration is the Washington Free Beacon. The rest of our undaunted and ever-vigilant press have focused instead on Biden’s general defenses of his misstatements and fabrications.
The Los Angeles Times, for example, ran a story that makes one reference to children in cages and does so only to point an angry finger at the Trump administration. There are no mentions anywhere in the story that this had happened under the Obama administration.
Similarly, the New York Times also published a light-hearted puff piece mentioning Biden’s “kids … in cages” remark and Trump-era policies. But like the L.A. Times, it also omits all mentions of Obama White House enforcement.
ABC News was likewise careful to repeat Biden’s “cages” line with a note explaining briefly that it is a “reference to President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.” There is no mention that it happened when Biden was veep.
Reuters mentions the applause line and Trump White House immigration policies, but it likewise avoids mentions of similar policies that were enforced on Biden’s watch.
The Washington Post’s write-up of Biden’s Colbert appearance does not even mention the Trump administration immigration policies. It quotes the Biden line about “cages” and then moves on entirely in a different direction.
Fox News also took a pass on noting the former vice president’s historical connection to the controversial immigration enforcement policies that he now decries.
CNN did not even give the Colbert interview its own dedicated article. It merely posted a clip of the interview to its website with the headline, “Biden jokes about making Michelle Obama his VP.”
Maybe it is just me, but in covering Joe Biden’s remarks this week about being shocked — shocked! — that the Trump administration would lock up undocumented children, it might be worth also mentioning what happened during Joe Biden’s eight years in the White House.
