"Embrace the image. Wander the minefield."

Well, that's a bold move.

A few days ago I noted the tragedy of Joe Biden and how his first run for President foundered on a lie - specifically his plagiarism of another politician's autobiographical speech. I mentioned:

My first awareness of him as a national figure was in the Democratic primaries for the 1988 presidential nomination when it was revealed he had a history of plagiarism and fabrication. The precipitating event was his plagiarism of aspects of an autobiographical speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. That he was plagiarizing aspects of an autobiographical speech was mystifying. That he was plagiarizing a hard left socialist from Britain was mystifying. That he was plagiarizing a socialist politician with a track record of failed leadership was mystifying.

[snip]

He has never been ready for prime time.

Nice guy but not up to the standards of our times, then or now.

He announced his third, and presumably final, run for President today. Given his history of plagiarism and untruthfulness, one had to wonder how he was going to position himself, how he was going to navigate that particular minefield. You had to imagine dozens, if not hundreds of ferociously intelligent people thinking about how best to tackle this.

What they apparently came up with was "Embrace the image. Wander the minefield."

From Anne Althouse, doing the unpleasant work most of us shirk.

Biden's announcement video is anchored in a demonstrable lie.

I'm blogging this morning in a public place, so although I've put up 2 posts about Biden's announcement video, I had not yet listened to it. I finally got out my headphones out so I could listen, but I could not get through to the end, because I became so angry at the LIE and the continued music and montage became torture to me.

In the part that I did see, we were shown images from the Charlottesville march — replete with the "Jews will not replace us chant" and swastikas — and then Biden's blandly earnest face asserted that Trump said some of them "are fine people." But Trump did not say that! It's absolutely established that Trump excluded those people explicitly before saying that there were some fine people on both sides of the question of keeping Confederate statues. (At the time of the fine people remark, Trump said, "I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.")

How dare Biden rest his campaign on a blatant lie — a lie that has been used to stir up fear and racial discord?! The hypocrisy of offering to bring us together and embrace lofty values when he is either repulsively ignorant or just plain lying!

Professor Althouse is a career law professor and I think it accurate to describe her as a moderate Democrat by inclination and history. But she does love language and accuracy. For probably the most electible candidate in the field so far to lead with such a manifest lie is kind of a slap in the face of every centrist, Democrat or Republican, who is seeking someone who will unite and who will work within some framework that is reasonably (or even recognizably) truthful.