President Joe Biden set a pretty high bar for himself early in his speech commemorating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Great nations don’t bury the truth. They face up to it,” Biden said. “My fellow Americans, in life there is truth, and tragically, there are lies. Lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie.”
Can’t disagree with that. Later in his speech, Biden added, “As we stand here today — one year since January 6th, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated.”
This is fine. Some people are still lying about who won the 2020 election, and that’s bad. But then, Biden continued, “So, we have to be firm, resolute, and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and to have that vote counted.”
Here Biden is on a lot shakier ground. As he did earlier in his speech, he is trying to equate what happened on Jan. 6 with commonsense voting reforms passed by Republican legislators around the country. Requiring signatures on mail-in ballots is not violence. Any suggestion otherwise is just absurd.
And then, Biden’s speech got even worse.
“Some have already made the ultimate sacrifice in this sacred effort,” Biden continued. “Jill and I have mourned police officers in this Capitol Rotunda not once but twice in the wake of January 6th: once to honor Officer Brian Sicknick, who lost his life the day after the attack, and a second time to honor Officer Billy Evans, who lost his life defending this Capitol as well.”
Officer Evans was killed three months after Jan. 6 by a black nationalist supporter of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Officer Evans’s death, while tragic, was absolutely not “in the wake of Jan. 6.” There is absolutely no connection between the two events.
So why did Biden falsely say Evans’s death was caused by Jan. 6?
Probably for the same reason Vice President Kamala Harris compared Jan. 6 to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 in her speech: Democrats are desperate to make Jan. 6 a much bigger deal than it actually was.
There were 2,403 Americans killed on Dec. 7 and 2,977 killed on 9/11. One person was shot dead on Jan. 6. These events are in no way similar.
Over 140 law enforcement officers were wounded on Jan. 6 by violent rioters. That is absolutely terrible all by itself.
The people who committed this violence are being arrested and prosecuted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. That isn’t burying the truth, that is facing up to it.
Using Officer Evans’s death to attack Republicans who disagree with him on voter identification is an absolute disgrace, and Biden should be ashamed of himself.
