Pinocchio

I've always thought Joe Biden a near pathological liar. Here's a link to an editorial in the NY Post detailing his untruths during his debate with Sarah Palin:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10042008/postopinion/editorials/the_lies_biden_told_132104.htm

Joe Biden is living proof that if you've served 37 years in the Senate, dress nicely, have a cultured accent, and speak with seeming authority, you can say anything and people will believe you. The problem is that instead of his nose growing with every lie he tells, his poll numbers go up instead.

The media tends to dismiss his mistakes as "just Joe being Joe," or as Biden "being gaffe-prone" in the same way that Gerald Ford was stumble-prone. But there's a difference. Ford's physical klutziness said nothing about his character; Biden's willingness to make up "facts" on the spot does.

Let's not forget that this is the same man who during his Presidential run in 1988 gave a speech about his grandfather who worked in the coal mines. The only problem was, Biden never had any ancestors who worked in the coal mines. It turned out that he had plagiarized the entire speech from British Labor leader Neil Kinnock, whose grandfather had been a miner. It's one thing to appropriate someone else's words; it's another to appropriate his entire family history. This type of persona-stealing is usually the province of con artists.

On another occasion in 1988 Biden told an interviewer (this was caught on CSPAN) that he undoubtedly had a higher IQ than the interviewer, as he had graduated in the top third of his law school class and had three undergraduate degrees. More lies. He graduated 76th out of 85 in his class at Syracuse Law School, and had only one undergraduate degree.

To all those who give an effete shudder at the thought of Sarah Palin being only a heartbeat away from the Presidency, think hard about the alternative.