Photo: Jeff Swensen / Getty Images News / Getty Images
“You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier” - John Wayne
The above is President Biden’s favorite movie quote. He brought it to fame back in February 2020 when he said it to a New Hampshire voter, but he’s used it as recently as September 2023 while delivering remarks in Vietnam. He loves the quote because 1. It’s aggressive 2. It’s unique 3. It’s John Wayne. But there’s a catch with Bidne’s favorite movie quote: John Wayne never said it in a movie. In fact, no one did. And Biden KNOWS that it’s not a John Wayne movie quote now, because back in 2020 it was fact-checked repeatedly, and no one (including the Washington Post) could track it down. But fast-forward to 2023, and Biden is still using the quote and attributing it to John Wayne, because well, he likes saying it regardless of its veracity.
That brings us to ‘Uncle Bosie’, the latest in a long line of stories that Biden likes to tell that aren’t true at all. In this one, Ambrose ‘Uncle Bosie’ Finnegan got “shot down in New Guinea” while on a recon mission during World War 2 and “they never found his body because there used to be, there were a lot of cannibals – for real – in that part of New Guinea.” The President likes to tell this story so much that he told it to two different audiences on Wednesday in Pennsylvania. The problem here is, well… CANNIBALS, but also “shot down”. ‘Uncle Bosie’ did exist, he was lost at sea (after his plane experienced engine trouble), and he did died while serving his country. But for some reason, POTUS felt the need to add in “shot down” (dramatic effect? more heroic?) and “cannibals” (no idea why – how does it even enter one’s head to embellish a story by adding in cannibals, let alone cannibals that ate one’s uncle?). Sadly, ‘Uncle Bosie’ joins a long list of people that Joe Biden knew who didn’t do the things Joe Biden said they did:
- Corn Pop – “bad dude”
- Joe Biden Sr. – “it’s simple Joey, they’re in love”
- Angelo Negri – Amtrak conductor who said “Joey baby”
- Grandpop Biden – “died in the same hospital I was born in”
- Grandpa Finnegan – “All-American football player”
And now there’s ‘Uncle Bosie’. At some point someone needs to make a trading card set of the people Joe Biden has told stories about. The front of the card can have the subject’s picture, and the back of the card should have Biden’s fable side by side with the fact check of the story. All that’s needed is a name for the trading card series… maybe the “Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier” collection?