Tim Blair: Even by Joe Biden’s standards, Papua New Guinea cannibal story an absolute banger
Joe Biden’s latest claim involves the confused White House occupant startling his audience with an extraordinary allegation of renegade wartime chompery, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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The 2024 US presidential contest took a curious twist last week when incumbent Joe Biden claimed his uncle was eaten by cannibals.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Biden, who on good days can sometimes remember that he actually is the leader of the free world, somehow veered on to the subject of avuncular anthropophagy during a campaign chat with Pittsburgh steelworkers.
“And my uncle, they called him – Ambrose, they called him Bosie … and he became an Army Air Corps, before the Air Force came along, he flew those single engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones,” Biden rambled, performing his usual Grandpa Simpson “I tied an onion to my belt” routine.
But the confused White House occupant then startled his audience with an extraordinary allegation of renegade wartime chompery.
“He got shot down in New Guinea,” the President said of dear old Uncle Bosie, “and they never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals – for real – in that part of the New Guinea.”
More than a few jaws fell open at that point, but not because any delicious uncles were simmering in a nearby bain marie. Even by Biden’s wild standards, this cannibal yarn was an absolute banger.
It was also, of course, completely wrong on so many levels.
According to military records, Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan – Uncle Bosie – was a passenger aboard a twin-engined Douglas A-20 Havoc when it crashed in May 1944 en route to Nadzab Airfield, New Guinea.
Finnegan and three other crew members were never recovered and presumed killed. A solitary survivor no doubt assisted with the military’s official account, which reports that the aircraft lost altitude “for unknown reasons” before “both engines failed”.
It wasn’t shot, then.
And it wasn’t a single-engine plane.
And, most importantly, it didn’t crash on dry land.
Rather, the A-20 Havoc “was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea”. So if Uncle Bosie became an amuse-bouche for any peckish Papuans, they’d have had to swim some distance to get him. Or perhaps a platoon of paddling people-eaters was simply lying in wait.
The White House and its pro-Democrat media allies are well-practised at smoothing over the President’s lies, delusions and lapses, but Biden’s cannibalism story pushed them to their limits.
Associated Press opted for the classic “nothing to see here” downplay, merely noting that Biden was “off on details” of his uncle’s WWII death.
You know, just minor details, such as whether or not he was eaten.
Likewise, the NBC network ran with this timid line: “Biden mischaracterises the circumstances of his uncle’s death.”
For most of us, wrongly claiming a close family relative’s death involved condiments would be a big deal. For the US President, though, it’s a mere mischaracterisation.
A subsequent White House press conference provided a defining moment of this entire chaotic administration. Let this question, asked by Fox News’s Peter Doocy, ring through the ages: “Why is President Biden saying that his Uncle Bosie was eaten by cannibals?”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stumbled through nearly 70 words of avoidance before coming up with this: “The President had an emotional and, I think, a symbolic moment.”
In fact, he had two such moments. Biden made the same cannibalism claim earlier that day. But why?
Just a theory, but maybe the prez is of a munching mind due to his new campaign ad, starring an alarming cast of big-toothed Kennedys. All that ivory will do strange things to a man.
Easily the best reaction came from the University of PNG’s Michael Kabuni, who pointed out that besides all of its other problems, Biden’s claim lacked historical context.
“Implying that your (uncle) jumps out of the plane and somehow we think it’s a good meal is unacceptable,” Kabuni told The Guardian.
“They wouldn’t just eat any white men that fell from the sky.”
They might if it’s Biden, insulter of the Papuan people. Given the President’s inability to cope with Air Force One’s stairway even at ground level, the chances of him one day falling from the sky would have to be pretty decent.
A final command from the White House’s Karine Jean-Pierre: “We should not make jokes about this.”
No promises, but I’ll chew it over.
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