The man is just a liar:
BIDEN: Can I respond? Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie’s Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there’s a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.
Look, the people in my neighborhood, they get it. They get it.
Only problem is that those people in his neighborhood existed in the 1980’s….not today:
But I checked The News Journal archives this morning and, well, don’t plan on trying to find it on Union Street anytime soon. And I wonder if the Katie’s today, which is now actually Wings to Go at Katies, is the same Katie’s that Joe remembers…..
Katie’s was at the corner of Sixth and Scott streets in Wilmington’s Little Italy neighborhood. (Not Union Street.) It had been a local and much-loved institution, well known for its rich, thick Italian gravy (tomato sauce) and spaghetti. It was opened in 1936 by Silvio Spiezio, who later sold it in 1945. The Fugilino family owned and ran the restaurant for years until it was sold in the 1981 after Frances Mae Fugilino’s death.
Katie’s then changed hands again in 1985, but new owners kept the venerable name.
But it eventually changed hands again – at least 10 years ago, maybe even more like 15 years ago.
Ryan Cormier with more:
Towards the end of last night’s Joe Biden/Sarah Palin debate, Joe Biden said this: “All you have to do is to go down Union Street with me in Wilmington and go to Katie’s restaurant…”
It caught me off guard, as well as our food guru Patty Talorico.
She investigated a bit and realized Biden was referring to the long-closed Katie’s Italian restaurant, which is actually two blocks away from Union Street.
The establishment is now a Wings to Go.
Talorico’s blog post has been picked up by the John McCain campaign, along with The National Review, New York magazine and others.
For a guy running as an in-touch-with-the-real-people candidate, it’s hard to believe he not only referenced a restaurant that has been closed for nearly 20 years, but also got the location wrong!
I just called the owner of Wings to Go, Nate Johnson, who verified that Katie’s closed in the late ’80s.
“He was a little off,” Johnson said of Biden.
Just a bit.
If he wanted to have us believe he sits down with the folks in his neighborhood to shoot the shite and they complain about the economy under Bush then at least make up a restaurant that is still standing…
Geez…
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