Who will unwind the torrent of bizarreries, misrepresentations, lies, and howlers unleashed by President Biden in his remarks at the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia earlier this week? I doubt this is work the professional fact-checkers at the Washington Post and elsewhere will do. They certainly wouldn’t have their heart in it.
The New York Post commissioned James Bovard to do the job. Unfortunately, limitations of space confined Citizen Bovard to “Debunking 10 of Joe Biden’s lies about the state of the US economy.” Bovard writes, for example:
CLAIM: Biden apparently thinks that public raving can restore confidence in his leadership. He literally screamed at the AFL-CIO audience: “I don’t want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives!”
REALITY: Federal Reserve analysts estimated that Biden’s deluge of handouts added 3% to the inflation rate by late last year. The Federal Reserve has boosted the money supply by 40% since the start of the pandemic, helping fuel price surges across the board.
CLAIM: The president told the AFL-CIO he wants to fight inflation by offering new subsidies for child care. In Chicago, Biden said, “It costs you 12 to 14 thousand dollars a month for child care.” Does that include limousine service to and from the day-care facilities or what?
REALITY: The White House Press Office silently corrected the official transcript, adding “[year]” after the word “month.” But it couldn’t fix the logic that a deluge of new federal handouts would miraculously lower prices.
CLAIM: Perhaps the biggest howler in Biden’s speech was his plan to fight US food price hikes by building temporary grain silos in western Ukraine and eastern Poland to facilitate wheat exports.
REALITY: Diddling with silos will be too little, too late for consumers in America or anywhere beyond Europe. Pathetic talking points in presidential speeches are no substitute for bread.
Here is Biden raving, substituting volume for coherence.
Biden, visibly angry: "I don't want to hear anymore of these lies about reckless spending. We're changing people's lives!" pic.twitter.com/0I3OgmIJGD
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 14, 2022
Bovard concludes with a general observation that is right on and widely applicable to the Biden presidency:
Biden alternates between claiming credit for everything good that happens in America and swearing to be an innocent bystander to an economy going off the rails. There are plenty of slanted fact-checking websites waiting to absolve progressive policies and Democratic politicians. But there is no cure for the grim numbers that Americans see every day at the gas pump. Perhaps Biden’s only hope is that the fact checkers can persuade people: “Don’t believe your lying eyes!”
Bovard only scratches the surface. Byron York, for example, digs more deeply into the issue of inflation in “The powerless presidency,” a column that preceded Biden’s AFL-CIO speech but is nevertheless useful to understanding the liberties Biden takes.
Bovard’s column gives a good idea why Americans are tuning out the absurdities dished out daily by Biden and his spokesmen. The whole thing here is very much worth reading (and we could use more like it).
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