Gaffe or Lie?

I hate these kind of dilemmas. I remember when George W. Bush was president and every damn thing he did we got into the “Is he truly evil or just abominably stupid?” It should be an irrelevant argument, because , in a society which is democratic and by democratic I mean actually responsive to the needs and desires of its people, either one should be reason enough to remove somebody from office, whether that office is county sheriff or President of the U.S.
So it is with Biden. When he said, in a speech today in Las Vegas, that he was against the war in Iraq, was it a gaffe or was it a lie? Because he voted for the war. (of course Bernie Sanders voted against it. Bernie is always a bit ahead of the curve.) Of course, his full statement was the even though he’d voted for the war, as soon as it started he realized he was against it. Which is still bullshit (a common tactic: when you’re caught talking bullshit, talk some more bullshit) because he was still singing the war’s praises for years after it had begun.
I’m thinking this is in the flat-out-lie category. He’s got a history of that, too, and plagiarism. Really, just not the most trustworthy guy.
But how can you tell the difference? Well, the actual things he said made grammatical sense – not like ‘we prefer truth over facts’ or ‘poor kids are just as smart as white kids.’ I didn’t actually watch the video of the speech but the Business Insider article didn’t say his speech was slurred and he was muttering, which was definitely the case when he said “In the 60s, the 70s, late 70s, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, and it was the era of tune in, turn on, drop out, true, you could go to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco and all the hippies, some of you guys remember but I’m sure you ladies don’t.” So, I’ll assume he was speaking coherently this time.
Which makes it not a gaffe. Which makes it a lie. Which is way, way worse. When a politician tells you they were against a war, and you can very quickly check the public record and see that they were in no way opposed to the war, that politician should be pilloried in public and pelted with various vegetables, well beyond their sell by date.
They should certainly not continue their nonsense run for office.