OPINION:
President Biden has no shame. Speaking to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy last weekend, he claimed that he received an appointment to Annapolis in 1965. That is actually the year he graduated from the University of Delaware. It seems like he is the real head of disinformation.
Ironically, the new Disinformation Board was paused after justifiable outrage and references to “1984” and “Ministry of Truth.” Ironically, one of the first statements about the proposed leader of the panel was a piece of disinformation: “Nina Jankowicz is absolutely neutral.” They certainly could keep busy looking into the disinformation coming from the Biden administration and its allies.
How many times did we hear from candidate Biden that his son Hunter did nothing wrong? Big Tech helped bury the story before the election while The New York Times acts like it just discovered new details about the laptop. All the while, Mr. Biden still clings to the idea that Hunter is totally innocent.
How about when Mr. Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos to talk about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan? He said, “And if there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.” More disinformation from the commander-in-chief.
Then there is Mr. Biden’s pronouncement that his “Build Back Better” plan adds zero dollars to the national debt. Never mind that the cost is greater than the entire annual economy of nearly every nation in the world.
It is kind of like when then-Sen. Biden said he did not plagiarize during the 1987 presidential campaign. Then they replayed his comments and matched nearly every word of a speech by the Labour Party leader in Great Britain. While being pressed by the media over charges of plagiarism, he called those charges false and proclaimed that he was one of the top students in his law school class. Only later did the American people find out that he had to redo a paper after accusations of plagiarism and that he graduated near the bottom of his class. Decades and decades of disinformation.
During his State of the Union Address this year, Mr. Biden went off script and said, “Many of you have been there. I’ve been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan over 40 times.” He made a similar statement in 2019, and his presidential campaign staff had to clarify that he had visited the combined countries 21 times. More disinformation.
In January, Mr. Biden traveled to Georgia to attack the new voter integrity law in the state. He invoked the civil rights battles of the 1960s saying: “I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walked these grounds. But I walked other grounds. Because I’m so damn old, I was there as well. You think I’m kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested. Anyway.” There is no evidence that the 46th president was ever arrested. He is, however, guilty of disinformation.
Mr. Biden claimed during his visit that the new law would suppress voters. Instead, the state just saw historic turnout levels during the recent primary for governor and U.S. senator in the Peach State. Looks like those claims turned out to be false.
Last November, Mr. Biden tried to downplay big losses for Democrats in the blue state of Virginia by saying, “No governor in Virginia has ever won when … he or she is the same party as the sitting president.”
The statement came the day after former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe lost the election to Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The last person elected governor in Virginia when his or her party also held the White House? Democrat McAuliffe. He was elected governor in 2013, when Democrat Barack Obama was the president.
Early in 2020, candidate Biden spread even more disinformation at a campaign rally in South Carolina: “This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.” Even PolitiFact gave that statement a “Pants on Fire” ranking.
When he was vice president, Mr. Biden called Obamacare a “big f——— deal.” One of the key selling points of the plan was the promise that, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” Back then, the phrase was PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year. Looks like Mr. Biden might be giving his old boss some competition for that award with his own statements as president.
In January, Mr. Biden said he exceeded expectations in his first year. The one area where that is clearly accurate: disinformation.
• Scott Walker is the president of Young America’s Foundation and served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.