Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY)

Can Biden gaffe his way to the White House?

- Cal Thomas Cal Thomas is syndicated by Tribune Media Services.

The modern media trend is to make fun of President Trump for his alleged and actual misstateme­nts of fact. You have to go a long way — in this case Sky News in Australia — to find a media outlet willing to make fun of a U.S. liberal Democrat.

The host of a program called “Outsiders,” Rita Panahi, assembled a montage of gaffes and gibberish from the former vice president and current frontrunne­r for the Democratic presidenti­al nomination, Joe Biden.

The Biden montage makes you ask: Is this guy mentally fit to be president?

Biden supporters might argue the clips are edited, but what makes them formidable, credible — even incredible — is that they appear to reflect Biden’s speech and thought patterns over many years.

Here are some samples, beginning with his reference to “Super Thursday” (instead of Super Tuesday). Next comes this misstateme­nt during a presidenti­al debate: “150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie (Sanders) voted to exempt the gun manufactur­ers from liability.”

If that were true, it would certainly “reduce the surplus population,” to quote Dickens’ Scrooge.

How about this beauty? “It would put 720 million women back in the workforce.” Our country’s population currently stands at just under 330 million. Who’s doing Biden’s math? There’s more. “Nobody should be in jail for nonviolent crime.” That would clearly reduce the prison population, but it would likely increase the number of nonviolent crimes. Maybe Biden’s thinking the nonviolent offenders would be so grateful for being sprung he could earn their votes? Bernie Sanders oneups Biden on that one. Sanders thinks even incarcerat­ed violent offenders should be permitted to vote.

Biden recently announced he was a candidate “for the United States Senate.” He called the state of Vermont “a neat town.” “Make sure you have a record player on at night,” he advised an audience, and “Poor kids are just as talented as white kids.” A Republican who said that would be called a racist.

“We choose truth over facts,” said Biden. He botched a line from the Declaratio­n of Independen­ce,

saying, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; all men and women created by, you know the thing.”

The “thing” to which Thomas Jefferson was referring was God, but Democrats once booed God at their political convention, so apparently mention of the Creator’s name is taboo among the secular progressiv­es in the Democratic party.

Panahi asserted that Biden has gotten as far as he has because the U.S. media largely cover for him. She then plays the most hilarious and outrageous sound bite of all.

Biden appears to be speaking to a group of African-American young people who are standing behind him at a swimming pool. Attempting to ingratiate himself with them (though they look bewildered), Biden talks about swimming in a pool when he was their age: “I got hairy legs that that turns blonde in the sun, and the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it would change and then watch the hair come back up again. I learned about roaches. I learned about kids jumping on my lap, and I loved kids jumping on my lap.”

He goes on about somebody named “Corn Pop” who he said “was a bad dude and he ran with a bunch of bad boys. And I did, and back in those days to show you how things have changed, if you used pomade in your hair, you had to use a bathing cap.”

Panahi ended her story by saying, “Can you imagine that man in a presidenti­al debate with Donald Trump? There isn’t enough popcorn in the world.”

Grab some popcorn and watch it all.

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