Former Vice President Joe Biden admitted Friday that his recent claims of being arrested during a congressional delegation trip to South Africa in the 1970s were false.
Biden has faced scrutiny over the claims, made repeatedly over the past few weeks, that he was arrested with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young "on the streets of Soweto," a township in Johannesburg, attempting to see imprisoned anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela.
"When I said arrested, I meant I was not able to move," Biden said, after recounting what had happened to him. "Cops would not let me go with them. I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go."
Biden admits he was never arrested in South Africa
His campaign communications director first walked back the claims after Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate in Charleston, S.C.
www.politico.com
Have you ever tried to get through a crowded street and had your forward motion arrested? Now you too know the struggle Biden went through.
Biden has previously lied about protesting the Vietnam War, participating and even leading civil rights movement sit-ins, participating in marches, helping register black voters, and has this recurring elaborate fantasy about attending training sessions at a Wilmington church. He was already forced to publicly recant this during his 1988 presidential run, when these total fabrications and his constant plagiarism in college and his stump speeches engulfed his campaign.
"When I marched in the civil rights movement, I did not march with a 12-point program," Mr. Biden thundered, testing his presidential message in February 1987 before a New Hampshire audience. "I marched with tens of thousands of others to change attitudes. And we changed attitudes."
More than once, advisers had gently reminded Mr. Biden of the problem with this formulation: He had not actually marched during the civil rights movement. And more than once, Mr. Biden assured them he understood — and kept telling the story anyway.
Biden’s First Run for President Was a Calamity. Some Missteps Still Resonate. (Published 2019)
In 1988, Joe Biden was prone to embellishment. Hints of that linger today. But unlike then, his message to voters is clear: He’s a stabilizing statesman in a tumultuous time.
www.nytimes.com
'I worked at an all-black swimming pool in the east side of Wilmington, Del. I was involved in what they were thinking, what they were feeling. But I was not out marching. I was not down in not out marching. I was not down 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.''
This guy has lied consistently throughout his entire career to create this false narrative based on other people's efforts and experiences. I'm ashamed I didn't know this when he was selected as Obama's VP.