Because we all misspeak from time to time, I have been tolerant of Joe Biden's frequent verbal gaffes. But this was no gaffe. He made this assertion deliberately the other day in Kenosha: "We've got to, for example, why in God's name don't we teach history in history classes? A Black man invented the light bulb, not a White guy named Edison." My first response was, "Whaaaat? What is he talking about?" Undoubtedly Joe was referring to Lewis Latimer, who patented an improved version of the light bulb in 1881. But Edison patented his in 1879. So we should certainly give Latimer his due, but to teach that he invented the light bulb would be a revision of history. Long before Edison's bulb, others had succeeded in producing light by sending electricity through some kind of filament. But without question, Thomas Edison was the first to invent a "commercially viable" bulb. Joe was not correcting the historical record; he was pandering.
