Did U.S. first lady Jill Biden have a medical license stripped from her by a medical board? No, that's not true: Biden is not a medical doctor and the publication that made the claim is a known satire website.
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) titled "Medical Review Board Revokes Jill Biden's License" that was posted on the website Potatriots Unite. It opened:
Dr. Jill Biden may want to stop calling herself "doctor." The former Second Lady and wife of Democrat nominee Joe Biden has been stripped of her license by the Medical Review Board.
This is how the article appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Potatriots Unite screenshot taken on Wed May 12 14:06:48 2021 UTC)
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
According to the Obama White House archives, Biden received her doctorate of education from the University of Delaware in January 2007. She was awarded the degree after earning two master's degrees, in education and English, from West Chester University and Villanova University, respectively, and a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Delaware.
The Potatriots Unite satire article claimed that Biden was stripped of a medical license due to multiple complaints of malpractice. The hyperlink attached to the malpractice claim led readers to a Google Translate page that stated that Biden was developing her own vaccine against stupidity. The article also claimed that Biden was in the process of losing her pension that was attached to service in the Army Medical Corps. Biden never served in the Corps: rather, the White House describes her as "a military mother and grandmother."
Just in case readers still did not realize that the Potatriots Unite article was satire, it ended by stating:
Further review of the story led us to the conclusion that Dr. Diden (sic) isn't a medical doctor at all and that it might be better if we decided not to publish such nonsense, but let's face it. The bulk of our readers stopped after the first quote in the story confirmed their bias, then they clicked one of the shiny ads.
God bless America.
The hyperlink attached to "The bulk of our readers" led readers to a Google search of the term "morons."
Jill Biden's use of the title "Dr." has provoked controversy. The Associated Press stylebook, the standard newsroom reference, seeks to reduce confusion by reserving the title only for credentialled medical experts: "Use Dr. in first reference as a formal title before the name of an individual who holds a doctor of dental surgery, doctor of medicine, doctor of optometry, doctor of osteopathic medicine, doctor of podiatric medicine, or doctor of veterinary medicine."
In December 2020, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece by Joseph Epstein in which Epstein described Biden's use of the tern "Dr." before her name as feeling "fraudulent, even comic." Biden and her husband President Joe Biden appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on December 17, 2020, and discussed the piece. In the interview, Biden doubled down on her pride in her educational degree. The video of the Bidens' interview is below and Colbert's question about Biden's feelings regarding the opinion piece begins at the one minute and two-second mark:
Lead Stories has previously written about Biden's doctorate in education and her career in education.
