Like many politicians, President Biden likes to support his polemic by illustrating his points with biographical stories about himself and his family.  There is nothing wrong with that, until he starts to "make his good stories even gooder" by embellishing them with falsehoods. 

For example — he was a coal miner; he marched for Civil Rights in the 1950s and even got arrested; he got arrested on a trip to South Africa to visit Nelson Mandela; he was a truck driver; his maternal grandfather was an All-American football player at Santa Clara University; he'd received a senatorial appointment to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in 1965, etc.

There is a new lie that has now surfaced.  It had skirted the body of public knowledge until July 6, when Brandon re-used it in a speech in Cleveland and altered an essential detail in order to suit the purposes of his speech.

Biden went to Cleveland to speak before a trade union audience about the American Rescue Plan's $90-billion bailout of these pension funds.  Evidently, there are some 200 union pension funds that somehow, mysteriously have gone bankrupt.  It's hardly shocking, given the long, sordid history of corrupt union officials looting these funds, but instead of locking up the persons responsible for this malfeasance, in his speech, Brandon blamed the pension funds' failures on unrelenting attacks by Republicans on the trade union movement.  He proposes to reward the unions' mismanagement at best and outright theft at worst with $90 billion.

In speaking about the importance of restoring the integrity of these funds and how important such funds are to the peace of mind and "dignity" of workers who've genuinely worked long and hard for them, Brandon trotted out a family story that he has used on numerous occasions in the past.  In the Cleveland version of the stump speech, Brandon grew up in a cheaply built house in Claymont, Delaware, which had thin walls separating the various rooms, and one night, he could hear his father thrashing about the room, unable to sleep.  The following morning, he asked his mother why, and she replied that the day before, his father had received bad news from the company he worked for that they would no longer fund their...pension fund.  Note that, because it is the altered detail that disables the entire story.

There is a fellow named Mr. Burgandy who almost on a daily basis puts out one or more short videos in which he presents the latest Biden gaffes, and the following day was no exception.  Mr. Burgandy found two instances from last April in which Brandon used the same story in public speeches, except on those occasions, the bad news that his father had allegedly received the day before was that his company had announced it was no longer going to cover his...family health insurance.

The first occasion Mr. Burgandy found was in Brandon's speech given in New Hampshire on April 19 to promote his Infrastructure bill.  The second occasion was three days later in Auburn, Washington to speak about Earth Day.

This first excerpt is from Brandon's New Hampshire speech. 

As usual, I have transcribed Brandon's words verbatim, transliterating from gibberish where necessary.

1:14) "Next morning when he went to work I asked my mom what was the problem she said, "He just notice (sic) his company just said, no moy vakana they're not going to cover health insurance any more."

Here is the relevant excerpt from the Earth Day speech:

1:17) "And I asked my mom the next morning before I went off to school, what was wrong with dad, and she said, "They told him, honey, that they'd not gonna d'gover insurance any more on his job, health insurance."

See what's happening here.  Brandon altered an essential detail of this story in order to cram it into his present narrative.

In his Naval Academy commencement speech, Brandon invented a personal story out of whole cloth in order to set up a fictitious remark he attributed to Senator Caleb Boggs, who purportedly had said to Brandon in a debate that he wouldn't even have been eligible to debate him had he accepted Boggs's non-existent appointment.

Brandon isn't telling true personal stories.  He's telling — creating — personal parables, for what is a parable but a work of fiction meant to convey a higher principle?

When Jesus told parables, he created short works of fiction to convey higher truths.  No one believes there was a real Prodigal Son or a real Good Shepherd.  But Jesus never created parables that involved his own personal life story, alleging things about himself that weren't true, and he never told parables for the sake of his own personal gain.

Is this parable about Brandon's father a genuine family story?  Did this exchange between him and his mother ever really happen, in any form?  Is there any kernel of truth in it?  Or is the whole thing as false as his claim that he graduated in the top half of his law school?

And even if this story about his father did happen in some primeval, true form, how much credence can we place in it, or anything Brandon says, any longer, given his penchant to corrupt and pollute sacred family stories in service to his need to advance his political standing, even at the cost of his personal integrity?  Like the lie he iterated for years alleging that when his first wife ran a red light and was t-boned by a truck, the driver was drunk?

Brandon has forfeited all claims on our credulity.  Henceforth, anytime he relates any personal anecdote, we should regard it not as literally true and factual, but instead as the family fable it is.

Joe Biden image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.