(Jake Turcotte)
Joe Biden’s harrowing helicopter ride
By Jimmy Orr | 09.23.08
Who says Joe Biden isn’t newsworthy?
It all started yesterday when Joe Biden was addressing attendees of a National Guard conference in Baltimore. The Democratic nominee for vice president recounted a harrowing experience when he was “forced down” over the mountains of Afghanistan.
“If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me,” Biden said. “Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”
Old news
Biden has referenced the helicopter incident before. In fact, The Vote blog referenced it two weeks ago. Biden was talking at a fundraiser in Chicago and gave the group a preview of what he was going to discuss in his upcoming debate with Sarah Palin.
We wrote, referencing a Chicago Sun Times article, that Biden was going to question Palin about “the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down…John McCain wants to know where Bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That’s where Al Qaeda is. That’s where Bin Laden is. It’s not in the country of Iraq.”
But we were lazy.
Jake Tapper, over at ABC News, hadn’t heard about the helicopter incident and smartly Googled it. This is what he found out:
In February 2008, Biden — along with Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. — was on a chopper that made an emergency landing in the mountains of Afghanistan.
A snowstorm had forced them down.
A snowstorm?
Tapper went out to write:
“The weather closed in on us,” Kerry told the AP at the time in a phone interview from Turkey. “It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges. So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed…We sat up there and traded stories.”
Kerry joked, “We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn’t have to do it…Other than getting a little cold, it was fine.”
I’m here all week. Try the veal…
In both retellings of his story, Biden seemed to have left out the part that it was a snowstorm that forced his chopper down, leading some to think that he was implying that it was brought down by hostile forces. This led to a rather humorous exchange this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Host Joe Scarborough, a conservative former member of the House, mockingly asked, “If bullets had gone another way, Joe Biden may not have been here today?”
After plenty of banter, co-host Willie Geist responded, “Not bullets, kind of like bullets – snow. A snowstorm forced them to make landing.”
Scarborough feigned, “I don’t understand.”
Geist was more than happy to explain, “Unless the Taliban controls the weather, the Taliban did not force this helicopter down.”
Conservative or liberal, it was a funny exchange.
Heads up
Of course the McCain staff blasted out an email making certain everyone knew about it and – get this – had an opinion on the whole thing.
“Biden’s exaggeration of his Afghan helicopter ride is no surprise and reminds us of his daily assignment to embellish and fashion a record for Barack Obama where one simply does not exist,” said McCain spokesman Ben Porritt.
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2. Flo Mitchell | 09.23.08
I reaaly don`t have any respiect for Biden.
He said He would be VP for Obama or mcCain.
That is how He is.
4. april sands | 09.23.08
This is the opposite of John McCain saying that he walked the streets of Baghdad and how safe he felt when the reality is he was wearing a flak jacket and surrounded by an Army brigade. Its all about the picture they are trying to paint and who’s willing to show the real picture.
These photo ops and back stories are as fictional as those we’ve seen in the movies. Life is art? Don’t you just love politics??
6. Dennis Crews | 09.23.08
I never heard him say the Taliban forced him down. That seems to be a complete fabrication of these talking heads. Biden said, my helicopter was forced down in those mountains. That is where bin Laden lives. And that is true.
I have been there myself in the 1970s. It is extremely desolate country - it would be a bad place to be forced down in a helicopter even without the presence of the Taliban in the surrounding region. Add the snowstorm and it was probably terrifying. They were sitting ducks, utterly defenseless, white men without weapons in Injun territory. I’d call that scarier by far than Hillary’s flight into Bosnia.
7. WD | 09.23.08
At this juncture we should unite together. Name calling sounds like we are having some family issues here. I hope the press needs to get more input on what policies the candidates stand for. Let’s get it straight. All the four candidates for president and vice presidents are individuals with honor and truly believe that they will make a difference. I do not believe gender or racism should be a factor as we already have broken the barriers. I do not believe that experience counts because neither of the candidates were presidents. It was like saying I was a CEO of an air-conditioning company of 50 employees gets promoted as CEO for Boeing. The presidents are surrounded by smart people, who will remain even if the current President and his cabinet leave. What we need to see is how each one of the four thinks? As I said before gender or race should not matter. God has given all the four brains. We all assume we know enough about McCain and Biden. Not enough of Obama and definitely nothing about Plain. Even though this has been a long election process I still have no idea on what all these folks are truly going to accomplish. I hear all tall stories and contradictions. I feel the press needs to get all the four in separate rooms at the same time and ask the same hard questions as to what they would do if they were presidents. Not what their running mates would do. Then if the press would put it in an unbiased comparison chart which will give us better grasp for common folks. Previous presidents have mentioned that nothing will prepare you to be President. I pray that the next President is honest to the people. Is trusted by our friends and respected by our enemies. Violence begets violence. Honor is important to build trust. Life is precious weather it is unborn or the living. This war has proven beyond anything that wars do not work anymore. I am really concerned about our economy. Service jobs can be created in any economy. I strongly feel we need to kick out all the economy pundits out of the White house and think of rebuilding our manufacturing base. The biggest issue is that we need to foster competition and stop all mega mergers. In the last 6 years I noticed all the Mega mergers like HP, telecommunication, airlines and banking. This needs to be stopped. CEO and CFO’s lie in their finical reporting to get huge bonuses. However, you turn around and see that these same companies pay almost nothing in taxes and also cut the benefit of their employees. Is this fair? I can go on and on. We the people demand the press to spend more questions like these. For the candidates if the lie in public we should hold them accountable in the court of law. The same that they felt they had to do in Congress for Barry Bonds. I think that was wrong. But if they think it is right to send Barry Bonds to jail for lying about taking Steroids then I do not see why a candidate who lies to public should not be held accountable in similar terms. Let’s get to the facts and forget the family portraits. Let’s all love this country and God Bless America
8. nick wilbur | 09.24.08
I really find the tv hacks interest in this to be clearly orchestrated to scripted create a story out of nothing. Thinly veiled sarcasm and mockery seems to be their only journalist credentials left to rely on.
I would rather ‘run-for-cover’ under actual sniper fire with Hillary on my shoulders, than I would fly anywhere over in a helicopter Afghanistan or Pakistan; even with Chuck Yeager.
9. Billy Bob | 10.11.08
Dennis Crews is right on. These T.V. idiots are creating B.S. to talk about. You can fire all of them, with the exception of Olberman, Maddow, Mathews, and Larry King.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
1. Joe Biden’s Helicopter Ride to the Gates of Snowy Hell | DBKP - The Worldwide Leader in Weird | 09.24.08
2. BidenHawk Down…Joe (almost) takes on the Taliban armed only with a snowball | Joe Biden is an Idiot.com | 10.02.08
4. Obama to arrive for inaugural via train - will pick up Joe in Delaware | csmonitor.com | 12.15.08
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Jimmy Orr has worked in politics for the majority of his professional career working for two U.S. Senators, two Governors and one President. Most recently, Orr served as White House Spokesman and Internet Director for President George W. Bush and Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger for Internet Communications.
David Cook is Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor and host of the Monitor's newsmaker breakfasts. He was the Monitor's editor from 1994 to 2001. Cook is a graduate of Principia College, served in the U.S. Army, was a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and is a member of the Gridiron Club, Washington's oldest journalistic organization.
1. David Mathews | 09.23.08
Have you ever braved a hostile snowstorm?