Vice President Joe Biden will go into tonight’s debate on a mission to paint Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan as liars. Problem is, Biden has a long and well established history of bending the truth himself.
In the above video, taken at April 3, 1987 campaign stop in Claremont, New Hampshire, Biden can be seen sparring with a voter who questioned his academic credentials. Biden responded, “I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship – the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship.” Biden went on to claim that he graduated in the top half of his law school. Problem is, none of that is true. The New York Times reported in 1987:
In his statement today, Mr. Biden, who attended the Syracuse College of Law and graduated 76th in a class of 85, acknowledged: “I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law school and my recollection of this was inaccurate.”
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Newsweek said Mr. Biden had gone to Syracuse “on half scholarship based on financial need.” In his statement today, Mr. Biden did not directly dispute this, but said he received a scholarship from the Syracuse University College of Law “based in part on academics” as well as a grant from the Higher Education Scholarship Fund of the state of Delaware. He said the law school “arranged for my first year’s room and board by placing me as an assistant resident adviser in the undergraduate school.”
In addition to the above video, Biden also had to fight off multiple accusations of plagiarism, both in his speeches and his academic work, throughout the campaign. He eventually withdrew from the 1988 Democratic primary on September 23, 1987, without receiving a single vote.
