Luckily for Jill Biden, Joe Biden was lying again.
The president’s well-earned reputation for stretching the truth past the breaking point got another boost on Tuesday when he used an appearance in New England to promote his $1 trillion infrastructure bill to tell the audience he knew firsthand how important good roads are to emergency services because he’d had a house burn down himself.
It’s not a bad point, and a personal story wouldn’t be a bad way to make it. Except that, like so many Biden stories, it wasn’t true.
The moment came as Biden was holding court at the Pemigewasset River Bridge, a span built in 1939 in Woodstock, New Hampshire.
He said structures like the bridge were vital because, besides their importance to businesses and residents going about their lives, they made it possible for emergency services workers to get help where it’s needed – in time for it to make a difference.
And the president knew that firsthand, he said, “having had a house burned down with my wife in it.”
“She got out safely, God willing.”
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But Biden didn’t have a house burn down – with or without his wife in it.
According to an Associated Press report about the August 2004 incident, lightning sparked a fire at the Biden home in New Castle County, Delaware, but it was “contained to the kitchen.”
“Luckily, we got it pretty early,” a local fire official said at the time, according to AP. “The fire was under control in 20 minutes.”
Even the fact-checker at The Washington Post couldn’t let that slide.
Biden today: We “had a house burn down with my wife in it. She got out safely.”
2004 AP news report: “A small fire that was contained to the kitchen….Jill reported the fire…The fire was under control in 20 minutes.” https://t.co/2VcAebg9r5— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) November 16, 2021
Now, it’s true that Biden amended his “house burn down” remark seconds later, backing it down to “having a significant portion of it burn.” But the point is that for Joe Biden, a lie comes just as easily to his lips as the truth if he thinks it will help him make his point.
And anyone claiming his house burned down “with my wife in it,” when it didn’t and she wasn’t, is lying beyond reason.
For most human beings, that’s harmless. But most human beings aren’t the president of the United States.
Throughout his career in politics, Biden has been a fabricator, displaying a regard for the truth so casual that any sane observer would conclude he is simply dishonest at heart. He lies about matters big and small.
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His first run for the presidency was derailed by a plagiarism scandal. He lied for years about the man who was driving the truck that was involved in the crash that killed Biden’s first wife in 1972. (Biden claimed the man was drunk. He was not.)
He’s lied about driving a semi. He’s lied about getting arrested trying to meet Nelson Mandela.
He’s almost certainly lied about his knowledge of his son Hunter’s business dealings. He’s definitely lied, interminably and repeatedly, in a story about an Amtrak engineer he knew who seemed to have a strange interest in the number of miles Biden has ridden the rails.
He’s lied about his first job offer, for goodness’ sake.
And those examples barely scratch the surface of Biden’s lifetime of lies.
But still, liberals and the mainstream media cover for him.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler’s Twitter post was greeted by a pathetic army of Biden defenders, predictably arguing that his lie about his house burning down was no big deal.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that a whopper like this from the president got almost no attention in the mainstream media.
But it should matter, a lot.
Because when the president stretches the truth like this past the breaking point, has done so throughout his political career and shows every inclination to keep on doing it as long as he’s in office or drawing a mortal breath, he isn’t just damaging the trust of the American people.
He’s broken it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.