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Joe Biden's shameful lies about Iraq

By Scott Tibbs, December 22, 2011

Read the following two quotes and see if you spot something unusual:

"(Saddam Hussein is) a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security… We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world." - U.S. Senator Joe Biden on Meet the Press in 2002

"When that original debate took place, what is easy to forget, I don't expect people to remember, those of us like Dick Lugar and myself and others who voted to authorize the President to use force were based on the President's commitment that not to use force, that he had no intention of using force." - Vice President Joe Biden, December 13, 2011 on MSNBC.

People can change their position on issues in one of three ways.

First, they can have a legitimate change of opinion. There are some people who were formerly for the war in Iraq who honestly examined their position and decided they had made a mistake. Those people owned up to their position.

Second, they can change their position for craven political expediency.

Third, they can pretend they never actually held the opposing position at all, and have always held their new position.

Unfortunately, Biden has taken the third route, which is by far the least honorable.

Biden used to be in favor of the war, and now he is not. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. What is unacceptable is for the Vice President of the United States to lie about his former position. He has demeaned the office and shamed himself. He needs to apologize to the American people.