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.
