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On Friday, Joe Biden delivered the commencement speech to graduating midshipmen at the Naval Academy. There are questions about a story he told about himself. Did Joe Biden add another story to the long list of fabricated tales he tells from his own life story?

Biden told the midshipmen that he applied to the Naval Academy in 1965. He told a tale of applying to the Academy with a letter from then-Delaware Senator J. Caleb Boggs. However, in 1965, Biden graduated from the University of Delaware. He wouldn’t have been applying for graduate courses at the Naval Academy because there were none. The tale was an odd one, mixing his dream of playing football with his interest in the Naval Academy.

“I was told the Class of ’72 is here. I was appointed to the academy in 1965 by a senator who I was running against in 1972 — never planned it that way. I wasn’t old enough to be sworn in. I was only 29 years old when I was running,” Biden said.

“He was a fine man. His name is J. Caleb Boggs,” the president went on. “I didn’t come to the academy because I wanted to be a football star. And you had a guy named [Roger] Staubach and [Joe] Bellino here. So I went to Delaware.”

“But all kidding aside,” Biden continued on Friday, “the best line of the debate was after it’s all over, the announcer, the questioner — who was a good guy, but supported my opponent, who was a good man as well, I might add — and he said, ‘Sen. Boggs, is there anything else you want to say?’ And he said, ‘Yes, just one thing.’ And he took the microphone. He said, ‘You know, Joe, if you accepted my commission to the — my appointment to the academy,’ he said, ‘you’d still have one year and three months’ active duty and I’d have no problems right now.’”

The New York Post reports that this story is a new one. Political journalists covering Biden’s speech were caught by surprise at this new addition to Biden rhetorical repertoire. Biden is fond of storytelling, especially if he is the star of the story. He has been called out many times for making up stories to pad his resume or bring empathy from an audience. It looks like narcissistic personality disorder. There was no mention of applying to the Naval Academy in his 2008 autobiography “Promises to Keep”. By all appearances, this is a new story he pulled out of his hat, perhaps to bond with the midshipmen, to have them think he’s one of them. Who knows?

Biden likes to talk about his dream of being a football star in his college days. Staubach and Bellino are the only two Navy football players to win the Heisman Trophy. Biden likes to say he wanted to be a “star” football player. Perhaps so but he received five student draft deferments during his college years citing childhood asthma.

The US military was heavily involved in the Vietnam War by the mid-1960s and had Biden attended the academy, he would have had to serve in the Navy upon graduation.

Biden received five student draft deferments during his four years at the University of Delaware and subsequent three years at Syracuse University College of Law.

After Biden graduated law school in 1968, he reportedly was deemed unfit for military service by citing childhood asthma. His memoir doesn’t mention the condition while describing his football exploits or his work as a lifeguard. A report released in November by his doctor also doesn’t mention asthma.

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There’s just a whole lot of fishiness around Biden’s autobiographical details. He seems to insert himself and his life stories into whatever the occasion is, whether it is an academic graduation or even tragedies, like when he claimed to have spent time at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after a mass murder happened at the synagogue. That story was not true. As happens, his staff had to clean up Biden’s remarks and say that memory was of a phone call to the rabbi of the synagogue. It is just unseemly that Biden keeps propping himself up, especially since he’s been a public figure for 50 years and his statements can be verified.

One account of Biden’s speech doesn’t even mention the unusual claim that he applied to the Naval Academy. The press is happy to cover for Biden at every turn. It did report on Biden’s boast of how well he’s handling Putin’s invasion into Ukraine.

Delivering a commencement address to more than 1,000 newly commissioned ensigns and second lieutenants at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Biden said the Western response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal” war in Ukraine shows the world is aligning not on geography, “but in terms of values.”

He called the invasion “a direct assault on the fundamental tenets of rules-based international order,” adding, “that’s the world you’re graduating into.”

“The actions taken by Putin were an attempt, to use my phrase, to Finland-ize all of Europe, to make it all neutral,” Biden said. “Instead, he NATO-ized all of Europe.”

Ugh. For a guy who used deferments to get out of serving during the Vietnam war, he sure likes to fancy himself a military and foreign policy expert. Joe Biden has been consistently historically wrong on every foreign policy decision he’s made throughout his 50 years in elected office. The same holds true now. He had to be dragged into responding to Putin’s invasion into Ukraine. He did so long after others, like Macron, actively worked to try to stop Putin’s plans. Biden even suggested it would be acceptable if Putin took some of Ukraine’s land. Nothing big, mind you, but something small. Good Lord.

I’ll end with this. Creepy Whispering Joe made an appearance. He whispered to the midshipmen that he’s their commander-in-chief. Did he think they weren’t aware of that?

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