Biden acknowledges he wasn't arrested in South Africa despite earlier claims

[bluewater]

Link to tweet

Better late than never.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday acknowledged that he wasn't arrested in South Africa during a visit to the country in the 1970s despite recently claiming that he had been.

"When I said arrested, I meant I was not able, I was not able to move ... I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go," Biden told CNN's John Berman on "New Day."

Biden had recently claimed multiple times on the campaign trail that he was arrested on the trip to South Africa during apartheid. He's used the story as part of his larger efforts to connect with African American voters ahead of the South Carolina primary, where a big showing is critical if he is to remain viable in the race.
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"This day 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on (Robben) Island," Biden said at his South Carolina launch party in Columbia earlier this month.
On February 16, Biden said that he "got arrested trying to see" Nelson Mandela in prison, and on February 18, he said the same thing again as part of a story about trying to get his wife, Jill, to marry him.

The New York Times could not find any mention of an arrest in a review of news accounts, and a former United States ambassador to the United Nations, who had joined Biden on that trip, rebutted Biden's account to the newspaper.

Yeah, Joe just misspoke.

[George II]

1. Can we now just let this go and discuss the real issues that 99% of Americans are worried about?

[bluewater]

5. Isn't a Presidential candidate's word important?

How many retractions, walk-backs and later admissions are too many?

[George II]

7. I don't think we want to start cataloging "retractions, walk-back, and later admissions".....

....for all the candidates and their spokespeople.

It could be more embarrassing for some than others.

[bluewater]

12. Perhaps we should if they might be related to memory lapses.

I mean, Joe did say he was "arrested" in South Africa. In fact he said that twice.

Joe is an honest man, so perhaps he misremembered? Twice?

[brush]

14. Wasn't he "detained" along with the rest of his delegation?

Memory loss doesn't seem to be the case.

[bluewater]

16. But he wasn't "arrested", no one was.

The delegation refused to follow the apartheid rules on which lines different members of the delegation were going to use.

Biden has admitted this himself:

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday acknowledged that he wasn't arrested in South Africa during a visit to the country in the 1970s despite recently claiming that he had been.

"When I said arrested, I meant I was not able, I was not able to move ... I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go," Biden told CNN's John Berman on "New Day."

I think the CNN article was pretty accurate and fair in describing the episode.

And I am glad that Joe himself now admits that he was not arrested.

[brush]

17. And whether arrested or detained is a big deal? Move on.

[bluewater]

18. But Biden was not "arrested" or "detained". That's what makes this an ongoing news story.

Link to tweet

Curious and curiouser.

[brush]

20. Time to move on. Or should we get into Sanders' much heavier socialist baggage?

[bluewater]

21. Seems this News story has hit a nerve.

Biden’s ridiculous claim he was arrested trying to see Mandela

Biden’s first statement above is rather jumbled. Soweto, a township near Johannesburg, is nearly 900 miles from Robben — not Robbens — Island, which is off the coast of Cape Town. He appears to be referring to a trip in 1977, but the U.N. ambassador from 1977 to 1979, Andrew Young, told The Fact Checker that he was never arrested in South Africa.

“There is no chance I ever was arrested in South Africa, and I don’t think Joe was, either,” said Young, who as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. on civil rights demonstrations. “I was arrested twice, in Savannah and Atlanta.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/bidens-ridiculous-claim-he-was-arrested-trying-see-mandela/

[brush]

22. To some who want to focus on someone else's baggage for a change.

Have at it for how long you can milk it.

[bluewater]

23. "Time to move on. Or should we get into..."

"Time to move on. Or should we get into Sanders' much heavier socialist baggage?"

Honestly, that comment came across as a bit of bullying and kept me posting about this story:

Link to tweet

Enjoy your day.

[melman]

25. Oh my

No confrontation at all.

Link to tweet

“We had no problem with airports at any of the countries we visited"


Wow.

[melman]

24. Baggage?

Biden made this claim as recently as last week. That's not baggage.

[doxyluv13]

11. First deal with how you Biden supporters were backing this to the hilt...

..even after it was clearly suspicious. Even the Biden campaign backed away from the story, but not on DU.

[BusyBeingBest]

2. Worse, was his claiming Mandela threw his arms around him and thanked him for

getting arrested. So we know that's totally 100% bogus and a fabrication, PLUS putting words in a dead man's mouth for self-aggrandizement. If people weren't so panicked about Bernie, this would be a campaign killer. But it's stuff like this that makes Bernie more acceptable to me (seeing how he's likely going to win the majority of the delegates anyway).

[mzmolly]

3. Semantics.

[Loki Liesmith]

4. Lol don't care

[bluewater]

6. When "The most trusted Name in News" highlights it, people pay attention.

Like it or not.

[LanternWaste]

8. People also pay attention when the same story is spammed over and over

But I get it-- when there's only one bullet in the revolver, one is forced to use it over and over again.

'Like it or not..."

[bluewater]

9. Hmm. This story seems to have struck a nerve. And it's STILL in the newscycle.

Like it or not.

Biden acknowledges he wasn't arrested in South Africa despite earlier claims

By Veronica Stracqualursi and Sarah Mucha, CNN

Updated 11:43 AM ET, Fri February 28, 2020

The news is what the news is.

[LenaW]

13. It's not just this one thing.

It's claiming he was arrested meeting Mandela when he clearly wasn't.
It's the vote for the Iraq war - while he claimed he was against it.
It's the banking votes that Obama cited as leading to financial collapse - and later explained he didn't do it because he thought it was right, he did it because of "loyalty" - that's no better than republican senators voting the way they do.
It's the overwhelming concerns about dementia.

It's all the things we're told we're not allowed to bring up because it's rude - while simultaneously being told the great thing about him is that he's been vetted so these things will never come up in the general election.

Because we all know the republicans will be too polite to bring them up.

Guess what? They're all going to come up. They need to be addressed. Not brushed under the rug, and each one addressed as if it's the only single one thing when it's raised.

[melman]

19. If there's only one bullet in the revolver..

...can you really use it over and over again? #nothowthatworks

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. Why does he do this?