Question: Should the leader of the free world be able to recall basic details about a family story without getting almost everything wrong? Yes or no?
(Biden was in Pennsylvania where he was asked about a war memorial.)
Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan, Jr. was indeed Biden's uncle. He was born in 1917, worked as a salesman, and died on May 14, 1944 when Joe Biden was 2 (yep, Biden really is that old).
But all the details of the president's story are wrong (or spun for embellishment). He makes it sound like Finnegan was a pilot or a crew member, when in actuality he was a passenger on the day his plane went down.
This is something Joe does often. It's why he's been in politics for 51 years. If you listen closely, he doesn't say that Finnegan was a pilot. He doesn't say the plane he crashed in was single engine (it was a twin-engine A-20), but that he "flew single-engine planes for reconnaissance." He doesn't mention that his uncle was a passenger, but adds that "he volunteered" directly after talking about his skills as a pilot.
Any normal person would hear that story and think Joe was telling them that his uncle was a fighter pilot who bravely volunteered for a dangerous mission into enemy territory and got shot down in a dogfight in the process. But the way he shifts the frame of reference in the story allows him to make you think that without overtly lying. The fact-checkers can say that AKSHUALLY, he didn't say his uncle was a fighter pilot who bravely volunteered for a dangerous mission and got shot down in a dogfight in the process. Technically.
He just made everyone with a brain think that.
But there were two specific areas where Biden messed up.
First, Finnegan was not shot down.
The plane's engines experienced failure for some unknown reason, causing them to crash.
On May 14, 1944 at 5:05pm took off as a passenger aboard A-20G "Barry's Baby I.N.S." 42-86768 on a flight from Momote Airfield on Los Negros Island piloted by 1st Lt. Harold R. Prince on an administrative flight bound for Nadzab Airfield.
The crew included gunner TSgt Ashford H. Cardwell, engineer TSgt Anthony Zulkus. Also aboard was passenger 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan, Jr. assigned to 5th Air Force, Headquarters Advanced Echelon (ADVON) as a courier. The weather was reported as good on the flight route. Forty minutes into the flight, this A-20 attempted to ditch in the sea but both engines failed roughly 30' altitude and nosed over impacting hard. When this aircraft failed to arrive it was officially listed as Missing In Action (MIA). After the crash, Prince, Cardwell and Finnegan were never seen again. Sole survivor Zulkus survived and was rescued by a barge and taken to Saidor where he was hospitalized.
You may have spotted the second lie:
They landed in the ocean, not over cannibal-infested New Guinea.
But notice how Joe frames it. Were there technically cannibal tribes in New Guinea? Sure. Was in relatively in that area? Sure. Joe weaves those very loose details together and lets you draw the normal conclusion that his uncle may have been eaten without actually making the claim.
As for Finnegan volunteering for the mission, who knows? The pilot's mother, Mrs. Leona Carr of Santa Monica, California, did receive a letter from Gen. Douglas MacArthur stating the men were on a personal mission for him at the time of the crash, but what that means is completely unknown. Letters from military brass to grieving mothers have been known to include a few embellishments of their own. Zulkus was interviewed decades later by the founder of Pacific Wrecks, which categorizes incidents like this, but he was hazy on the details and had only met Finnegan that day.
Oh, I forgot to mention the third lie:
That Donald Trump ever called military members "suckers and losers," a lie he keeps repeating.
It might seem silly to dig into the details of a story like this, but it serves as an example of how easily Joe Biden can turn on a smile and proceed to tell you a tall tale for the ages at the drop of a dime. It also shows you how he's short-circuiting, and makes you wonder how the combo of lies/dementia might affect his daily interactions with world leaders on sensitive issues. Beneath that smile is a lot of anger and a foreign-policy record that is batting a solid .00.
He's like Congressman Murray from Parks and Rec, who lathers on the charm, then goes and stares at a wall.
Come to think of it, Joe was on that show as well!
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