Fact-Check Covers for Biden Forgetting Defense Sec's Name: He May Have Been Doing a Folksy Ad Lib
The country’s so-called fact-checkers continue to display why their industry is such a laughingstock.
Not that serious people with an appetite for sifting through the fog of political warfare trust the internet’s go-to fact-checkers to begin with, but you’d think at some point the people tasked with telling the truth would become aware of how silly they look and simply be honest.
People smart enough to know better who visit websites such as Snopes are in the business of seeking out confirmation bias while trying to avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance. It’s what keeps Snopes humming and readers coming back, even if there isn’t a lot of actual fact-checking occurring.
Can’t the folks at Snopes or even PolitiFact try, though? Not when it comes to President Joe Biden, and particularly not if they are faced with the prospect of admitting that something might not be right with their dear leader.
Snopes fact-checked a claim this week that Biden forgot the name of Lloyd Austin, his current and very new secretary of Defense, while speaking Monday to celebrate International Women’s Day. At the end of some very underwhelming and uninspiring comments, Biden fumbled when referring to Austin after thanking two female generals who he’d nominated for new command positions.
“I want to thank you both. And I want to thank Sec- — the, the, uh, former general — I keep calling him ‘General.’ My, my, uh — the guy who runs that outfit over there. I want to make sure we thank the secretary for all he’s done to try to implement what we’ve just talked about, and for recommending these two women for promotion,” Biden said.
Whoops: Biden forgets the name of the Pentagon, as well as the name of his secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin pic.twitter.com/ZtcgHLBIAO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 8, 2021
While the verbal snafu didn’t gain any traction with most establishment media outlets, it did get a lot of attention online.
And what happens when Biden does something to make him appear inept, unfit or generally embarrassing? The fact-checkers get involved to protect him.
Snopes neglected to address the fact that Biden called the Pentagon “that outfit over there,” but asked, “Did Biden Forget Defense Secretary Austin’s Name?”
The question was obviously rhetorical. You know going into the leftist rabbit hole these people run that they are going to find a way to creatively shoot down something so damaging and negative — and they did.
Fact-checker Dan Evon concluded the claim that Biden forgot the name of his own Defense secretary was a combination of both true and false — or that what we all saw was undetermined as a “mixture” of both.
“A video shows Biden fumbling his words and apparently blanking on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s name at one point in the speech, although he had mentioned Austin’s name a few minutes earlier without issue,” Evon wrote.
On the claim that Biden “forgot the name of his defense secretary during a speech,” he added: “It’s unclear whether Biden literally ‘forgot’ his defense secretary’s name at that moment, or whether, for example, he got stuck doing an extended ‘folksy’ ad lib after initially tripping over his words.”
“It should also be noted that Biden was likely reading from a teleprompter during this event. While the viral interpretation of this clip is that Biden ‘forgot’ the [sic] Austin’s name, another plausible explanation would be that Biden tripped over the word ‘secretary’ and then stumbled through an overly folksy correction,” Evon concluded in his fact check.
Snopes essentially decided that our eyes deceived us, and then conjured up a bland excuse for a 78-year-old lifelong Democrat who is obviously struggling at times with basic syntax and memory.
We’ve all seen the videos from the last year and beyond. On the campaign trail, Biden couldn’t even remember what state he was in at times. While running for president last winter, he actually endorsed a man for president who wasn’t even running for president.
Sure, we can’t know with 100 percent certitude whether Biden actually forgot the name of his Defense secretary or the name of the Pentagon, though all the evidence suggests he did. But for Snopes to write this saga off when there is a body of evidence telling us something is very wrong is worse than disingenuous.
It’s dishonest, dangerous and utterly bizarre.
Biden hasn’t been diagnosed with a cognitive disorder — at least no such diagnosis has been made available to the public. But the man is obviously struggling to keep it together. Without a way of knowing what is going on in that head of Biden’s, why did Snopes even bother to chime in? The site had nothing to offer but misdirection, which was the point.
Snopes, like the Democrats and the establishment media outlets it runs interference for, is still suffering from an extreme case of Trump Derangement syndrome. Its proclaimed ombudspersons wouldn’t know the facts if they bit a member of the White House security team — which Biden’s dog reportedly did just last week.
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