President Biden Has His 'Fine People on Both Sides' Moment

Spencer Brown reporting for Townhall 

President Joe Biden weighed in on the latest pro-Hamas uprising among American college students that began at Columbia University and has spread to other schools around the country on Monday afternoon and only made things worse — after his ham-fisted attempt at a written statement on the topic didn't go well either. 

After speaking at an Earth Day event, Biden was asked whether he condemned the antisemitic demonstrations taking place on campuses — which have risen to the level that Jewish students are being told to flee because their safety can't be guaranteed at school. 

"I condemn antisemitic protests and that's why I set up a program to deal with that," Biden responded (more on why that's a lie here). "I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians," the president added. 

Biden was also asked whether he believed Columbia University's President — Dr. Minouche Shafik — should resign over her inability to quash the unlawful protest and ensure security for all students. A confused Biden responded, "I didn't know that. I will have to find out more about that."

While Biden was, as usual, unclear with his answer to the first question about condemning antisemitic demonstrations, he also felt the need to condemn an unspecified group of people who "don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians." What exactly is he talking about? The entirely unnecessary addition made Biden's answer his very own "fine people on both sides" moment. 

Readers will likely remember the baseless smear of former President Donald Trump, who we were told "blamed the violence on 'both sides'" — according to PBS — after the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, saw one counter-protestor killed and 19 others injured. The false narrative purposely omitted Trump's adjoining statement that he was "not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally" when he said there "were very fine people on both sides" while discussing the debate over removing Confederate statues. 

Still, Biden repeatedly seized on the phony account of Trump's statement to attack his opponent. Here's one example from 2019:

According to one of Biden's litany of tall tales, the events that transpired in Charlottesville and Trump's wrongly attributed "both sides" comment were the reasons he decided to run for president in the 2020 election. Now here we are, with Biden doing what he wrongly accused Trump of doing. So, does Biden believe there are "very fine people on both sides" of the war started by Hamas against Israel? Does he blame both for the violence? Looks like it's time for the White House to launch another episode of cleanup on aisle Biden.