Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal opinion piece, signed by President Biden, contained this statement:
“I ran for president because I was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy.”
Really? Is that why he ran for president in the Democratic primaries in 1988? Or in the primaries twenty years later in 2008? And then for vice-president in the general election in 2008 and again in 2012, as Obama’s running mate? Is that why he ran again for president in 2020? Or is it that the guy has just wanted to be president his entire adult life?
I believe it’s unlikely that Biden wrote any part of the May 30th WSJ opinion piece that has his name on it. But still, he could have read it over before it was submitted. HE SHOULD HAVE READ IT before it was submitted, and if he had objected to the line about why he ran for president, that line would have been removed.
Biden formally launched his most recent and finally successful campaign for president on April 25, 2019, with the release of a three-minute announcement video, in which he talked about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that turned deadly. But, in his announcement, he said not one word about the economy – trickle-down or otherwise. NOT ONE WORD.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/politics/biden-campaign-video-announcement.html
What he did say was that “The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America, America, is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.” He gave a reason for running, but it wasn’t the economy.
I judge Biden’s WSJ statement, that he “ran for president because [he] was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy,” as a flat-out lie. He ran for president because that was his ambition for more than thirty years. There’s nothing wrong with that. So why lie about it? And, based on what he actually said in his announcement speech, it appears that he ran for president because he sincerely believed that Trump was a danger to the nation.
Politicians from both major political parties have been known to lie with impunity. Trump’s relationship to the truth is tenuous at best. It’s not at all clear to me that when it comes to telling the truth, Biden can be relied upon to be straight with the American people.