In 1860, Americans elected Honest Abe Lincoln.  In 2020, Americans theoretically elected one of the most prodigious and infamous liars in modern American history.  Joe Biden has a sterling reputation for routine dishonesty.  He's plagiarized, slandered, and prevaricated his way through 48 years of politics, before which he was a known plagiarist as a student.  During a CNN town hall in Wisconsin, Biden went into dishonesty overdrive, spewing two major lies.

I wrote here about Biden's most recent lie.  During the debate in Georgia alone, Biden lied to or misled Americans another 33 times.  In 2008, McCain's campaign was able to identify Biden's 14 major lies during the vice presidential debate.  Then there are the self-aggrandizing lies Biden tells whenever he gets a mic in his face.

And of course, there are the lies and plagiarism that got Biden kicked out of the 1988 presidential race (as well as a bonus lie about the Civil Rights Movement).  If Diogenes had ever run into Biden, he would have tossed his lamp into the nearest gutter, gone to a bar, and drunk himself to death out of sheer despair.

Tuesday was an especially rich day for Biden lies, because CNN hosted a "town hall" for him in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  In that supportive environment, Biden was able to get away with two blatant lies.

1. Biden lied that, when he entered office in January, his administration "didn't have" a vaccine (emphasis added):

There's just not all of a sudden 600 million doses are going to appear. What's going to happen is it's going to continue to increase as we move along, and we'll have reached 400 million by the end of May and 600 million by the end of July. The biggest thing, though, as you remember, when you and I— I shouldn't say it that way as you remember— when you and I talked last we talked about, it's one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn't have when we came into office, but a vaccinator. How do you get the vaccine into someone's arm?

In fact, even media outlets trying to show that Trump failed to get the vaccine rollout started had to concede that, when he left office, 13.5 million Americans had already been vaccinated.

2. Biden lied that Trump never condemned the Proud Boys.  This is an extension of Biden's oft-repeated lie that Trump said white supremacists and neo-Nazis are "fine people."  Thus, Biden claimed during the CNN town hall that, during his first debate with Trump, "I asked him to condemn the Proud Boys.  He wouldn't do it.  He said stand by, stand ready or whatever."

This is a twofold lie.  First, Trump explicitly condemned the Proud Boys, not just at the debate, but in the next days.  Trump has probably condemned extremist groups more than all presidents put together — and Biden just keeps denying it.

Second, to the extent Trump said "stand by," he was echoing the execrable Chris Wallace's phrasing.  Wallace, who knew that Trump had condemned extremist groups because Trump had done so in an earlier interview with Wallace, nevertheless asked Trump to "say that they need to stand down," so Trump did.

None of us is so naïve that we think politicians should never lie.  We understand that the nature of politics is that, sometimes, the truth must be buried or, at least, softened, especially in the context of dealing with hostile or less than friendly foreign nations.  And the first casualty of war is truth.

But Biden is in a class by himself.  He lies endlessly and effortlessly, always comfortable in the knowledge that the mainstream media won't call him on it and that no one in the swamp will care that conservative media outlets are challenging his dishonesty.

What Biden does is not just immoral, offensive, and distasteful; it's profoundly damaging.  Our American system is based on faith.  It's based on faith in the Constitution — namely, that the government will abide by the limitations the Constitution imposes on it — and faith that our governing class, no matter what it needs to say to other nations in both peacetime and war, will deal honestly with the American people.  A government that is unconstrained by the Constitution and truth is a danger to the American people.

Image: Biden at the Milwaukee town hall.  YouTube screen grab.