When he ran for president in 1988, Joe Biden was laughed off the stage, in part for telling easily disprovable lies that exposed him as second rate and shameless. Fortunately for him, we have lower standards now. Also shameless is Biden’s habit of milking personal tragedy. While declaring the Camp Hale Continental Divide a national monument yesterday, he combined both by claiming that his son Beau died in Iraq:

At least this time Biden is only stretching the truth, instead of inventing a lie from whole cloth. Beau Biden did serve in Iraq, and may have contracted the brain cancer he died of at Walter Reed from exposure to toxic burn pits there. But leaving the impression that he died in combat is an attempt at stolen valor.

On a tip from Wiggins.