President Joe Biden made another 'dog-faced lyin' pony soldier' reference to an audience, and once again suggested it came from a John Wayne movie, but the problem is this - no one is actually sure where that line came from. It apparently does NOT appear in any John Wayne movie, but Joe Biden has mentioned it does a few times. A report on three seemingly leftist websites, like Vox, even suggested that Biden's reference came out of thin air - or nearly out of thin air. If the right wing and left wing can agree on anything, then I guess it's this:
The phrase immediately got attention, with many confused by Biden’s choice of words. As it turns out, “lying dog-faced pony soldier” is a phrase Biden has used before. He attributes it to John Wayne, though its actual provenance is somewhat unclear.
The Guardian couldn't find Biden's line in any John Wayne movie either:
It’s not even the first time Biden has used the phrase. At a 2018 campaign event, talking about the Republican senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Biden said: “As my brother, who loves to use lines from movies, from John Wayne movies … there’s a line in a movie where an Indian chief turns to John Wayne and says: ‘This is a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.’”
Biden’s spokespeople said the line comes from a John Wayne film – but it’s not clear it does. There is a 1952 western called Pony Soldier, but it does not star John Wayne, and no one is called a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” in it, according to Slate. There is, reportedly, a line in the film in which a chief says: “The pony soldier speaks with a tongue of the snake that rattles.” Swings and roundabouts; dogs and rattlesnakes, I suppose.
And when it comes to Slate, they point out that no one uses that line, but the title of a movie and a specific quote isn't too far off:
By far the most common question raised by Biden’s use of the phrase in New Hampshire has been “What the hell is Joe Biden thinking calling a young woman ‘dog-faced’?” But running a close second is “Is there really a movie in which someone calls John Wayne a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’?” The answer is a resounding “maybe.”
Wayne appeared in 180 movies over 50 years, and who knows what they called him in all of them? But it seems at least as likely that Biden is thinking of a different film: Pony Soldier, a 1952 Western from director Joseph M. Newman starring Tyrone Power as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“Pony Soldier,” in the context of the film, is a Native American nickname for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and although no one calls Power a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier,” a chief does say, “The pony soldier speaks with a tongue of the snake that rattles,” which isn’t far off...
So where does this line really come from? It seems like Joe Biden is mixing up the title and quote or context of a movie and has ended up with his own quote that he THINKS came from the movie, but it's really just his own variation of a line that was never actually said. In other words, he basically made it up. This is who Democrats voted for... let that sink in.
