In the latest installment of "things the mainstream media would never do for conservatives," The New York Times is again rushing to President Joe Biden's aid to defend his frequent use of outright lies in his...creative...storytelling.
Headlined "Biden, Storyteller in Chief, Spins Yarns That Often Unravel," the Times points to Biden's usual lies used to pander to audiences but characterizes the blatant falsehoods as merely a "habit of embellishing narratives to weave a political identity."
How nice to be Joe Biden and have the Times around to make your literally unbelievable anecdotes an endearing quality, or whatever.
The Times outlines Biden's many falsehoods, starting with one of his most recent delivered to the victims of Hurricane Ian in Florida.
Standing in front of Floridians who had lost everything during Hurricane Ian, President Biden on Wednesday recalled his own house being nearly destroyed 15 years ago: “We didn’t lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it,” he said.
But, as the Times points out, Biden's claims are untrue.
In fact, news reports at the time called it little more than “a small fire that was contained to the kitchen” and quoted the local Delaware fire chief as saying “the fire was under control in 20 minutes.”
The fake story offered in Florida is hardly Biden's only habitual lie. The Times recalls Biden's claim that he was "a fierce civil rights activist who was repeatedly arrested" and "an award-winning student who earned three degrees" as well as someone who was "raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically."
But again, while highlighting Biden's falsehoods, the Times claims that it's just "Biden's folksiness" that "can veer into folklore" with "details that are exaggerated or wrong" and "the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences."
Really? Biden is lying, and The New York Times is saying that makes Biden a powerful orator. Have they heard Biden speak? Clearly the newsroom pitch meeting that came up with this story is indistinguishable from a packed clown car.
Showing lasting symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Times also made room to attack former President Donald Trump as being much worse for lying "constantly," because of course they can't try to rehab Biden's image before the midterms and a questionable 2024 run without attacking Trump.
The Times then returns to its gentle care for Biden's phony story machine of a brain, explaining how the president's imaginary stories are simply "emblematic of how the president, over nearly five decades in public life, has been unable to break himself of the habit of spinning embellished narratives." Lies would be the word for which the Times apparently didn't look.
Also according to the Times, those who point out Biden's falsehoods are simply trying to find "ammunition for Republicans eager to tar him as too feeble to run for reelection." Yet, in a moment of honesty, the Times does remind its readers that Biden has been lying about his own life for decades, stretching "as far back as his 1987 campaign for president, when his attempts to adopt someone else's life story as his own, and his false claims about his academic record, forced him to withdraw."
But then, quoting an apparently "expert" on presidential lying, the Times again is in damage-control mode with the claim that Biden "obviously has this tendency, where he’s a good and decent man who in politics has felt like he could stretch the truth up to a point just like virtually every president has done." Oh, well he's a good and decent man so his use of made up stories to pander to varying audiences is ok, apparently.
Just to make sure the Times framed Biden's lies correctly — that is, by denying they were anything more than little white fibs — they went to the White House to get a comment from one of Biden's aides responsible for cleaning up for the president's frequent gaffes and lies.
"President Biden has brought honesty and integrity back to the Oval Office," claimed White House Spokesman Andrew Bates, spinning furiously. "Like he promised, he gives the American people the truth right from the shoulder and takes pride in being straight with the country about his agenda and his values," Bates continued as unbelievably as one of Biden's falsehoods, "including by sharing life experiences that have shaped his outlook and that hardworking people relate to."
Except Biden has, in fact, repeatedly been dishonest with the American people. In addition to his less-harmful false anecdotes that illustrate his desperation to appeal to voters, Biden lied about the COVID vaccine mandate, promised Americans that none of their fellow countrymen would be left behind in Afghanistan during his disastrous and deadly withdrawal, and continues to lie about his "Build Back Better" agenda's inflation-driving and recession-triggering effect.
Thanks to outlets like The New York Times, Biden mostly gets away with all his lies because, as a Democrat, Biden enjoys the deference of the mainstream media and frequent damage control that comes from the loving liberal lapdog media.
It's baloney, but at least it's entertaining to watch the media contort itself to continue defending the honor of a punchline of a president.