Winston Churchill rose before the members of Parliament in the spring of 1904. After speaking a while he stopped, looking confused and became flustered. He had been speaking without notes. The words no longer came. As the seconds ticked into minutes Churchill just stood there. Then he sat back down on the green leather bench in silence, humiliated. He would later recall the episode as “the most embarrassing three minutes of my life.” Churchill, who had also had to deal with a speech impediment throughout his life, never spoke in Parliament again without holding in his hands a full sheaf of notes.
Churchill went on to become the greatest War Time leader in history.
President Joe Biden, who since his days in Catholic school and as a politician has to deal with a stutter, had a bad debate. Biden stood before a firehose of lies coming from the mouth of Donald Trump, all in Trump’s usual angry tone. Biden for a time became flustered, stuttered, and at times appeared inarticulate and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lies before him. CNN’s analysis is that in Trump’s 45 minutes to speak he told 30 major lies, spewing out one big lie after another every minute thirty seconds.
There was, for example, Trump’s lie that prochoice advocates seeking to protect the rights of women and to restore the balance of Roe v. Wade, “will take the life of the child …even after birth – after birth.” Later Trump repeated a similar lie but more forcefully, stating Biden was “willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby.” Those are outrageous lies. Lies that defy all common sense and common experience. Only a remorseless liar of utter shamelessness—a profoundly bad man of profoundly bad character like Donald Trump--could effortlessly lie like that with a straight face. Biden properly replied in anger: “He’s lying. That is simply not true.” Biden noted: “Roe v. Wade does not provide for that.” Yes, he conceded, there could be in a last trimester an emergency where the doctor must fight to save a woman’s life lest both baby and mother die together, but that is an exceedingly rare exception. Apparently to Trump, who has never respected nor valued women, the mother’s life just does not matter. Biden of course once again told the truth: “we are not for late-term abortion, period, period, period.”
Dealing with an especially audacious liar--willing to say anything no matter how outrageous the lie--is difficult for anyone. Biden at last grew more forceful in the second half of the debate as he became more roused with justifiable anger. Take for another example the memorable lie Donald Trump told of January 6. Trump said he had no responsibility for January 6 because he had offered Nancy Pelosi, “10,000 soldiers or National Guard, and she turned them down.…And the mayor of D.C. They turned it down.” The CNN fact check says: “Records show that Pelosi approved a Jan. 6, 2021, request to seek support from the National Guard and pushed to get National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol when their deployment was delayed by hours that day.” The Mayor of DC had also sought National Guard deployment only to encounter interminable delays from Trump’s own Pentagon ally, General Charles Flynn, the brother of Trump loyalist (and indicted but pardoned) General Mike Flynn.
Biden properly and forcefully countered with Trump’s conduct: “He sat there for three hours, three hours, watching, begging – being begged by his vice president and a number of his colleagues and Republicans as well to do something, to call for a stop, to end it. Instead, he talked… about these people being patriots. In fact, he says he’ll now forgive them for what they’ve done.…He says he wants to commute their sentences.”
As a lawyer I know firsthand a dreaded task is to confront the other side’s witness who is a practiced liar with unstoppable remorselessness—always, but always, I believe the result of a background where honor had no purchase. Donald Trump is both those things. If one reads the transcript instead of looking at the tape, one can see Biden did what one has to do: simply respond with the truth.
This I know. America under Joseph Robinette Biden has become the most prosperous nation in history. Europe now fares a distant second; Russia is on the ropes. The S&P 500 again shines at a new high in a string of new highs during the Biden presidency. The unemployment rate is 4%, well below the long-term average of 5.7%--and sharply below the rate reached under Trump of 6.3%. Above all we have in Joe Biden an honest President who has a code of honor. Because Biden is a good man, he has restored the respect for America in the free world that Trump in four years left humiliated. Biden has strengthened and will preserve NATO. He will preserve Ukraine at the eastern flank of the fight for freedom and democracy. Above all Biden will preserve America’s democracy from Trump, a want-a-be tyrant in the tyranny outlined by his Project 2025. Biden will continue to preserve respect for and the very lives of women. I am proud to stand with Joe Biden, a good man the debate reveals is standing up to an unacceptably bad man--and remorseless liar. Yes, Biden like Churchill has had his bad moment. Biden though has said he too will “get right back up and fight.” Assuming as I expect he stays in, I look forward to voting for Joe Biden November 5, 2024. The good guy must win against the liar and profoundly bad man. If not, may God “preserve and protect the Constitution” and the United States because Trump has already proved he will not.
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
