The Mind’s Lies

Does Joe Biden really believe the stories he tells about his past?

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President Joe Biden. (Photo by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)

Hi,

So on Saturday I gave a talk at an off-the-record event. I can’t tell you who introduced me, but you’ve heard of him. He’s a close friend. He’s 12 feet tall with a bright red unibrow that makes his prosthetic glass cat-eyes seem all the more fearsome.

Okay, that last sentence is not true. But who’s to say I don’t remember it that way?

I bring this up for a few reasons. First, because the friend and colleague who introduced me had gone through some old G-Files and declared that I had gotten worrisomely serious of late. When he made this charge, I stormed the stage and smacked him on the back of the head with a half-frozen halibut, sending his cat-eyes flying across the room where they bounced off Yuval Levin’s forehead—which took Yuval by surprise because he’d been trying to inconspicuously peruse Canadian porn on his iPhone.

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  1. Kgfroehle

    Late in the game here, but I'd like to suggest "Bidening" as a neologism for a situation where someone makes up things. Yeah, there's... who was that German guy? Munchausen? Goebbels?

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  2. Dispatch

    I am glad that you saw thru the false dilemma and spared both the innocent but regretfully rabid bear (grizzly or polar?) and reprogrammed the AI angry killer robot to be a peaceful killer robot. It cost you, but you did it.

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    Ben Connelly

    This has been a claim of psychology that I’ve often felt was lacking. Okay people have bad memories - I get that. It’s usually WAY overstated, including by Bloom. At a certain point, if we are to take their claims seriously we would have to doubt whether human beings know anything about anything. I mean, should I assume that my memory of what I ate for lunch yesterday is wrong? How about my memory of what I ate for lunch today? How soon after lunch do I have to begin doubting my memory of it? One hour? Five minutes?

    Essentially what they are saying is that we shouldn’t trust anything about the past, including what happened to us. I find this absurd. I wonder whether this is another case where something strongly supported by the research will turn out to be false.

    IF it is true, then I think we need more context. How and in what way do people misremember and is there a great degree of variability among people? Has this been shown to be true in studies that weren’t done on Western college students? I suspect that I have a slightly better memory than many other people, but I also know that the things I think are important to remember and make an effort to remember I can recall nearly perfectly (if I start immediately after the fact and keep reminding myself what happened), whereas the stuff I don’t pay attention to is the stuff where yeah my memory is often wrong.

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  4. Joe1776

    "Option 3: He’s telling the truth in that he believes his own false and manufactured memories."

    Not to nit pick but a statement is "true" if it accords/corresponds with reality. Proposition "P" is true if and only if it accords with reality. At least that is the traditional view of "truth." Whether a claim is true or false has nothing to do with the speakers state of mind.

    So I think you mean he is being "honest" and he is making an honest mistake when he says something that is untrue/false.

    I think this is an important distinction for many reasons not the least of which is that "misinformation" can come from honest people. If I consider all the beliefs I hold some are likely false. It is unlikely that every belief I hold is accords with reality. It is just that I don't know which are false. So for any given belief I believe it is true (arguably by definition). So if we say misinformed people are not allowed to express themselves then that means no one can express themselves. Even misinformed people should have a right to express themselves.

    My problem with Biden is people keep telling him that what he is saying is untrue and yet he keeps repeating it. I have gotten stories wrong but when I am corrected I stop telling the falsehood. I don't just decide to keep telling the falsehoods over and over again.

    The bigger problem is our press is so leftist no one even forces him to answer questions about his involvement with corrupt deals with Communist China etc. He just yells at them and they stop asking tough questions. Is he the Big guy? Did he never talk to Hunter about his business in china? Did he meet Bobolinsky or not? If so what about? All of these are basic questions but they are never asked. The issue is not that he just remembers this as tall tales when he is asked. He just refuses to answer and yells it is all debunked and that is of course a lie. The press never actually presses leftist candidates.

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  5. Pattidellpritch

    Hahahahaha!

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  6. Runyan.Jason

    I'm dying. This was freaking hilarious, and right on. Except I give Biden less credit because I think he knows full well he's lying, he's just become accustomed to it.

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    Michael Dan Martin

    We all have our own embellished memories, but it matters to what purpose they serve. I think that Biden is a total political animal whose one and only concern is winning elections and that is the purpose his false narratives serve. Like Magneto bending magnetic fields around him, so Biden bends reality to serve his political needs. That he may no longer realize, or has never realized, what he is doing may be an excuse but it doesn’t mitigate the harm.

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  8. Vrwc002

    Hmmmmmm, I seem to remember...or perhaps not.

    I find it believable that long term memory can cache the enormous volume of every single event in one's existence. I find it hard to believe we have a verifiable method of establishing that as immutable fact.

    But it is harmless so I will go with the flow.

    The Clinton references are hilarious to me in that I cannot quit giggling when I think of the number of times both the Clintons must have used "I don't remember" or "I can't recall" as a passive defense.

    I also can't help but think part of the problem for both Biden and Trump is that both were subjected to demeaning treatment much of their formative years. And I would bet the habit of creating personal glory stories were and are a way of repairing their damaged self image.

    Or they are simply both members of the Goebbels school of propaganda in good standing.

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      MattA

      By "demeaning treatment" do you mean "sorely in need of a spanking and not getting one"? (in Trump's case at least)

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        Mudskipper

        Everything I have read about Trump's father is that he was a pretty cold and abusive guy. And by abusive, I don't mean physically abusive (although he may well have been). He was an authoritarian who attempted to mold his sons by a system of punishments and mockery. The one thing he wanted for his sons was for them to be strong and domineering winners, not losers. It doesn't take much to see that Donald Trump's obsession with seeing himself as a winner at all costs stems from his childhood.

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      2. Vrwc002

        No, I'm in favor of appropriate punishment including spanking as needed.

        I do recognize that there are families with parenting styles that focus on tearing kids down instead of using spankings to get the child's attention then teaching why the behavior that earned the spanking is not acceptable and repeat performances would result in similar punishment. Being stern is not at all the same thing as mean spirited, (in Trumps case or not). In Biden's case my belief is he is too stupid to have understood either approach. 😁

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    d.a. douglas

    In the immortal words of G. Costanza, "It's not a lie if you truly believe it."

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    1. Drosselgeokate

      I had a coworker who in his younger years had worked all over the world. He would tell fantastic stories about the places he had been, mostly with a wink and a nod. His favorite line was, " Never tell the truth where a lie will fit."

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      David Burke

      Indeed, Derek!

      And that’s just how Nicki Haley describes trump in her The Atlantic interview regarding(and excusing) his treasonous behavior

      “He believes it…”

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  10. Nycsym

    It's one thing to lie (or embellish/mis-remember) about past life events (Corn Pop, e.g.), it's quite another to lie about certain realities that effect the lives of citizens and by extension, the nation. The dishonesty about inflation, or the border crisis, or the origins of the Corona virus, for instance, is causing untold suffering and misery. The lack of honesty about the efficacy and safety of COVID vaccines is a life and death issue for many. As the Twitter files are revealing, the deceit for political gain in government is deeply entrenched and the beneficiaries of the deceit are only too happy lie about it and besmirch the journalists who are forthcoming with the information. This is tragic and dangerous.

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      Michael Falciani

      The issue of “worse” is a distraction. I’m totally open to the argument that I’ve scored this wrong. Let’s say Trump was worse than Biden—who cares? The point is that both get a failing grade.

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