It’s an award he is no stranger to receiving after having previously been recognized for such gems as “If you like your doctor, you can keep him,” “The 80s called; they want their foreign policy back”—as well as his post-presidency boasts of having laid the groundwork for a historic economic boom and having maintained a “scandal free” administration.
But with other heavy-hitting gas-lighters like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi in contention, ex-President Barack Obama faced one of the greatest challenges in his highly privileged life while vying for Wednesday’s Biggest Whopper Award during the Democratic National Convention.
Tonight’s biggest whopper: Biden knows that “no public official including the president should use their office to enrich their supporters.” Read @peterschweizer #DNCConvention
— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) August 20, 2020
Two nights after Obama’s wife, Michelle, seemed reluctant to mention the former vice president and current Democrat presidential nominee by name, Barack put aside his long rumored contempt for his right-hand man, warmly referring to Biden as his “brother.”
“For eight years Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision,” he said, remembering to include mention of himself in the speech so as not to make it entirely about the nominee.
While the claim of their fraternal relations would likely be enough to trigger countless fact-checks in the left-wing press if the speaker were a Republican, that objectively false statement was likely intended to be a rhetorical flourish in Obama’s paean to democracy, delivered remotely from Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution.
The speech was laced with similar exaggerations, including one of the oft-repeated talking points about the post-office that Democrats have used during the DNC convention to deflect from their efforts to commit vote fraud via mail-in ballots.
Obama likewise falsely claimed that he and Biden had successfully managed the H1N1 swine flu and kept Ebola from reaching America, both of which overlooked significant details like the deaths of more than 1,000 children during the swine flu epidemic.
But objectively speaking none of the claims were more easily disproven than Obama’s declaration that “no public official—including the president—should use their office to enrich their supporters.”
In the context of his remarks, Obama’s comment underscored the pervasive cynicism of the American populace, suggesting that his successor, President Donald Trump, was engaged in such misconduct.
But, in fact, the remark might easily have been directed at Biden and many of the other speakers appearing at the DNC.
The shady dealings of many, including two of the night’s speakers—Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris—were exposed in conservative watchdog journalist Peter Schweizer‘s latest book, 2019’s Profiles in Corruption.
Biden’s abuse of power during the Obama administration included securing sweetheart business deals for his son Hunter, brother Frank and many others within his family.
Those deals took center-stage as Democrats attempted to weaponized Trump’s calls for Ukraine to investigate as part of their impeachment effort last year.
Hillary Clinton—the failed 2016 nominee who delivered, perhaps, the most bitter of the night’s anti-Trump diatribes—seemed to offer either a swipe at Biden or an acknowledgement of her own family cronyism in her speech also.
“The best testament to Joe is how he’s cared for his family,” she remarked.
