News/Commentary

Biden serves up a whopper lie to Marines, repeating claim son Beau was killed in Iraq

May 23, 2023 | | Print Article

President Biden repeated a whopper of a lie last week when he told US forces stationed in Japan that his son Beau was “lost” in the Iraq War.

“My son was a major in the US Army. We lost him in Iraq,” the 80-year-old president said Thursday at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni.

Beau Biden served in Iraq between 2008 and 2009 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard, but he died of brain cancer in 2015 at the Walter Reed military hospital in Bethesda, Md.

Back in October, President Biden said his son “lost his life in Iraq.” A few weeks later, he repeated the false claim while confusing Ukraine with Iraq.

“Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq,” Biden said on. “Excuse me, the war in Ukraine. I’m thinking of Iraq because that’s where my son died … because of that,” he added.

Repeating the falsehood prompts concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline but many in the media run cover for the doddering Democrat, who has held fewer press conferences than his recent predecessors and has granted fewer interviews. The few interviews he agrees to are primarily with members of the media who are considered friendly — or comedians and late-night talk show hosts.

One example of the media bias can be seen from Business Insider in October: “There is a reason Biden would make that statement, even if inartfully. The White House, when asked to comment, pointed to stories dating back to 2018 in which Biden has tied the toxic burn pits his son was exposed to during his military service to his brain cancer.”

And this week from the UK-based Independent: “Right-wing media outlets have attempted to use Mr Biden’s comments on Beau’s death as a sign that the 80-year-old Democrat has memory issues, ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”

A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that just 32% of Americans believe Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term if reelected, has the mental sharpness required to serve as president.

“More than 6 in 10 Americans say President Biden does not have the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll — a finding that underscores some of the stark challenges he is confronting at the outset of his campaign for reelection,” the Washington Post reported earlier this month.

Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

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