Jonah Goldberg has some choice statements for Biden's predilection for making up "facts" which have no relationship to reality. He writes [emphases mine]:
Well, as I suspected, my email box runneth over with agreement from — admittedly self-selecting — readers who caught Biden's relentless dishonesty last night. Alas, I don't think it matters. The conventional wisdom last week was that debates are meaningful only if they produce a soundbite that the press can replay over and over again. That didn't happen last night. Moreover, just from watching a few snippets on the tube this morning and a quick surf of the web, Biden's glib deceptions didn't much interest the press. Jake Tapper saw no reason to single out Biden. Bernard Goldberg (no relation) said on F&F that Biden had a greater grasp of the facts, which may be objectively true but he also has a much greater grasp of nonsense he just makes up as he goes along.
And, again, I never said that Palin was pure. My point is that Biden showed himself to an exceptionally facile liar. He makes stuff up with great passion, conviction and seeming command of the substance. So it just bugs me when people say he's better on the substance. I could be a great physicist if I'm not held to a requirement to be factually correct;
"Well, Gwen, that's an interesting question. As we all know the hamster spinning at the earth's core runs in a counter-clockwise direction. Let me repeat that so everyone understands. That hamster does not run in a clockwise direction, that would be madness. It's counter clockwise. That's why our lakes and rivers don't simply turn into a fine mist, and why our atmosphere doesn't simply spontaneously combust. This is something that my dear friend John McCain just doesn't understand. And it saddens me."
Anyway, you can be absolutely sure that if the situation were reversed this point would be made over and over again by the press. But since it will go down the memory hole, it just doesn't matter. Joe Biden is a mater of the substance and Palin is a rookie who did better than expected. That's how this debate will be remembered, alas.
Goldberg, a little later, posts:
Michael Goldfarb has a list of 14 Biden lies.
Then there's this from the Western Standard:
Biden is telling absurd lies about Afghanistan tonight. In particular, he's repeatedly claimed that "we've spent less in Afghanistan in seven years than we spend in a month in Iraq."
He's made that claim, or claims to that effect, repeatedly. It is, to put it bluntly, a complete Goddamned lie.
According to the Congressional Research Service, spending on the war in Afghanistan since 2001 has been $172 Billion. Spending in Iraq is, as the Democrats repeatedly mention, a little under $10 Billion a month.
In other words, Biden's number is off by, oh, something like 2000%. Perhaps Obama's Sub-Committee ought to have held some hearings on Afghanistan after all.
Andy McCarthy has important things to say also.
At the debate last night, Sen. Biden argued that (a) that we had "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon" and (b) he and Obama had suggested sending NATO troops to Lebanon to "fill the vacuum":
When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know — if you don't, Hezbollah will control it." Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.
My question, or rather, questions: Is he on drugs? Exactly when did this kicking occur? Has anyone alerted Sheikh Nasrallah?
And the NATO claim is just a riot. Obviously, there was no vacuum to fill since Hezbollah has only grown in strength in Lebanon since 1983, but has anyone seen something, anything, to support the claim that Biden or Obama wanted NATO in Lebanon — a proposal that would have been wildly controversial and would have made ballistic the hard Left voters they were then bending over backwards to attract?
On the off chance Biden simply misspoke and was actually talking about kicking Syria out of Lebanon, (a) we didn't do that either — they've never stopped operating there, (b) Hezbollah was part of the Lebanese government well before demands for a Syrian pull-out began in 2005, (c) Biden's "fill the vacuum" whopper still makes no sense because Hezbollah retained military control of southern Lebanon regardless of Syria, and (d) again, where is the proof that Biden or Obama wanted NATO to replace Syria — which would have pitted it against Hezbollah and invited a reprise of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing?
And finally this from Jonah Goldberg:
From a close friend of mine:
Jonah:
You can’t simply be resigned to everyone saying it’s Joe being Joe and alas. If he’s going to be the master of the details, and the details are ridiculously wrong, he has to be called on it. Forget every one of the Goldfarb lies you link to as many of them can all debated . But first on substance, the spending on Afghanistan point is so off and so embarrassing, you can’t spin it as you could the difference between differing senate resolutions on troop funding. It’s a dreadful mistake for someone who’s said “come with me to Afghanistan”, and all that stuff, and it’s their CENTRAL riposte for the Iraq war so it’s not like some bizarre point about Burma foreign aid. And if [the Western Standard] is right, he’s been saying it and not been called on it repeatedly so it’s not a verbal glitch. Second, on style, for him to go into a deliberate spiel about how’s he’s the man of the people, kicking it at Home Depot, and come on down to Katie’s restaurant on Union Street, and be talking about A RESTAURANT THAT CLOSED 20 YEARS AGO AT A DIFFERENT ADDRESS, is proof that his populism is phony and that’s he’s totally out of touch . It’s not like he garbled the name of some bar in Maumee Ohio, it’s HIS HOMETOWN OF 40 YEARS. It’s like the Wilmington stop on Amtrak is friggin’ Brigadoon or something.He just makes up crap. Sorry about the all caps. The tinfoil hat made me do it.
Yes, he makes up crap. But in the Senate that apparently makes him a chef.