Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Biden's career long Pinocchio Syndrome

 By William Haupt III | The Center Square


Former Vice President Joe Biden gives a tribute during memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

“The lip of truth shall last forever; but a lying tongue shall last only for a moment.”

– Proverbs 12:19

Pinocchio is a character in the 1883 children's book “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Italian author Carlo Collodi. Pinocchio is an animated puppet, who happens to be a habitual liar. His nose grows longer with each lie he tells. Throughout the story, this boy’s nose grows longer every time he tells a tale. He is such a naughty boy, his nose grows so long he can’t get it through the door to his room.

Carlo Collodi was a Florentine political activist. Critics conclude he did not create the habitual lying Pinocchio to entertain children. His objective was to illustrate what happens if they fail to learn the facts. People will be gullible and believe every lie others tell them. And then they repeat those lies as truths to other people. Since they never learned the truth, nobody ever believes a thing they say.

Pinocchio is an icon for parents and teachers to impress the importance of truth. Political scientists claim despots like Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Lenin had what they call the “Pinocchio Syndrome”; the ability to twist and turn lies to deceive the most gullible of the masses. They lie so much so often people believe their lies are truths.

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

– George Orwell

Psychiatrists define the Pinocchio Syndrome as the mental disorder of being a “pathological liar.” They concede those who have this pathology are characterized by the inevitable compulsion to lie and they lie so much so often, they eventually believe these lies themselves.

“Too many people are concerned about being factually correct instead of being morally right.”

– Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

During elections, fact checking is a full-time job. There is a fine line that separates fact from fiction. This is a nightmare for “real journalists.” There is also a finer line between exaggerating facts and inventing them. Until a decade ago, a few truth reporters fact-checked campaigns. But that ended with Obama, Clinton and Biden. They can say anything they wish and the media reports it as fact.

The left and the press have ripped Trump daily for his enthusiastic outbursts about his economic success, employment numbers, tax cuts, China trade deals, his border and foreign policies, etc. While Trump exaggerates and embellishes his success, he is not lying. He is “boasting” because the media won’t report them.

“I can’t do a thing right in the lamestream media.”

– Donald Trump

If it had not been for COVID-19, Trump would have this election already won. But instead of working with Trump, the media and the left exploited it to discredit him and the GOP, and to embellish the checkered past of Joe Biden as the hero who will rescue America from the evils of Donald Trump!

Since the left is making the 2020 campaign a referendum on Trump’s character, Biden’s history of lying and deceit is fair game. Biden revealed his dishonesty out of the gate: “There’s a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it? Of course not! It went right to the rich.” The Washington Post’s fact checker bestowed Biden with four “Pinocchios” after his first campaign speech. Another reporter said, “Biden has been inflicted with the Pinocchio Syndrome since birth.”

Joe Biden’s lying or creating fables has been a major liability during his political career. Yet Biden has escaped the public execution that the media inflicts on the right if they tell even a half truth.

As much as Biden loves to make up stories and embellish the truth, he shot himself in both feet when he wrote his autobiography. Unlike his past speeches and media interviews, Biden’s aides did not allow him to lie about his past since publishers fact check everything in an autobiography.

And recently, fact checkers have been using his book to piece together the real past of Joe Biden.

Biden claims an extensive resume as a civil rights activist and spent his youth working with other activists. But his book reveals that is a lie. “During the 1960s, I was concerned about civil rights, I was not an activist. I worked at a black swimming pool in Wilmington, Delaware. I was involved in what they were thinking, but I was not out marching. I was not in Selma. I was not anywhere else. I was a suburbanite kid who got a dose of exposure to what was happening to black Americans.”

Preparing for the election, Biden has doubled down on his past falsehoods. At a recent event, Biden claimed, “The moment the Iraq War started I was against it!” He added, “I was always labeled one of the most liberal members of Congress.” He also told the crowd, "I went to law school on a full scholarship and ended up in the top half of my class." Politico rated all of these assertions false.

Sociologist Nathan Galler said “Biden's chief character flaw is hypocrisy.” Biden’s 1987 bid for the White House ended abruptly when he got caught plagiarizing a speech by Britain’s Neil Kinnock. Biden retold his speech, verbatim, about being the first in his family to go to college and said his family worked in the coal mines. Both of those were untrue, taken directly from Kinnock’s speech.

The media whitewashed allegations Biden made illicit advances toward Tara Reade. They never commented on Biden’s son, Hunter’s, shady dealings in the Ukraine. When The New York Post released the story and proved Hunter Biden made millions in the Ukraine with the help of Joe Biden, he said, “This is family business.” Biden called an Iowa voter a “damn liar” when he told him about Ukraine. Both Twitter and Facebook are running cover for him.

Abraham Lincoln said, “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” Biden has been spinning tales for decades to prop up his résumé. When he accepted his party’s nomination for president, he paraphrased Dr. Martin Luther King: “This election is about character?” Nobody in the media said a word, although they recently said, “Biden has had the Pinocchio Syndrome since birth.” It is obvious the media is now watchdogs only for Democrats and no longer guard dogs for the voters.

Donald Trump is the fist president since George Washington elected by the people and not a party, and the media and the left refused to accept that. They put him through hell for three years trying to destroy his character and the GOP. They’ve spent four years assembling an army of leftist actors, street activists, liberal media giants, and rich climate kooks to take him out and destroy the GOP in 2020. And they have chosen someone who makes Pinocchio look like a fact-checker to lead them?

Comparing Donald Trump’s excitability, and boasting to Joe Biden’s fabricated fables and continual lies, is like criticizing the guy who tells a fish story about the one that got away and praising the guy who never went fishing and lied that he once caught a wale? If the left claims this election is about character, voters need to look at these candidates’ accomplishments, not the things they “claim to have accomplished.” If they do, they will find facts speak for themselves and reveal the real truth.

“Political merchandisers appeal only to the weak-nesses of voters, never to their potential strength. They make no attempt to educate the masses into becoming fit for self-governing.”

– Aldous Huxley


William Haupt III is a retired professional journalist, author, and citizen legislator in California for over 40 years. He got his start working to approve California Proposition 13.



https://www.thecentersquare.com/opinion/op-ed-bidens-career-long-pinocchio-syndrome/article_96afdcae-1207-11eb-bacb-97d8c30d65ca.html