The Joe Biden I “Know”

This current generation of voters knows Joe Biden only as Obama’s VP. I’ve been around a lot longer than your average voter (how startling to say that now) and I’ve “known” Joe Biden from the 1980s up to the present. He hasn’t changed with respect to his character: practiced smile while eviscerating a foe (cue the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings); plagiarist without equal (which led to the demise of one of his presidential runs); teller of tall tales. He, along with nearly 100% of his fellow Democrats, used to be pro-life, at least while it was politically viable to be so. That has changed. His latest flip-flop is on the abortion issue—not abortion itself, you understand, since he has been pro-abortion for some time now—but his so-called moderation on the issue.

You see, he used to support what is called the Hyde Amendment, which limits direct federal funding of abortion through Medicaid. That was last week. Then he saw the lay of the land in Democrat politics and decided that’s not where he wants to be. The Hyde Amendment must now go, as a matter of principle, I’m sure.

After all, when every other Democrat running for president (24 at the latest count?) is rabidly pro-abortion, who wants to stand out as less radical? One must win the nomination, you see.

Biden is quite smooth in explaining his various changes in principle:

In fact, he will be whatever you want him to be in order to get that nomination:

Joe Biden: just another typical Democrat politician who favors “choice,” as long as it’s a choice to take the life of a baby.

Hypocrisy abounds in American politics, and it’s not just the Democrats who exhibit it. But my thoughts on Republican hypocrisy can wait for another day.