On Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, Joe Biden made a comment that quickly went viral. In response to a question from a woman at one of his events, he looked at her and said: “You’re a lying dog-faced Pony Soldier.”
The statement certainly wasn’t presidential or respectful. It is not defensible. However, some context can help us understand what was going on. So, for that purpose, the additional context of his remarks can be seen in the video below.
This page will be updated in realtime as related news and events unfold. This page was first created at 5:34 PM CT on 9 Feb 2020. It was last updated on 10 Feb 2020 at 10:48 AM.
There’s some speculation that Biden, by referring to a woman as dog-faced, is trying to outdo Trump as insulter in chief on the campaign trail to get attention. However, it’s more likely that he’s drawn from the vintage phrases and vocabulary that are readily accessible to him. Biden has used this canned response before. (source) It’s a purportedly a line from a John Wayne movie which itself may be a reference to an 1876 battle.
The term “Pony Soldier” is likely a reference to the 1952 movie by the same name. (source) You may remember that movie was about the 1876 Canadian Constable who was battling with the Cree tribes at the time. If you’re under the age of 70 you may not remember the movie.
Fox News quickly came to Biden’s defense with a report about the incident that explained what had happened. There will no doubt be some speculation about why Fox News would defend Biden.
The lead up to his response is in the Twitter video below posted by Steve Guest:
The Spin Attack
Bernie Sanders surrogates, including the news group Rising, were quick to spin this story into an attack on Joe Biden. What Fox News is to the Republicans, Rising is for Bernie Sanders. See the segment below where there is no context or analysis provided, with the goal of having the viewer simply be disgusted with Joe Biden. The woman introducing the story seems to be amused and elated with the blunder rather than upset that a woman was insulted. The video is queued to 2m 8s:
Stephen Colbert
Not surprisingly, Stephen Colbert made mention of the incident. His team provided a bit more research into what happened.