“The White House is calling Biden “one of the leading statesmen of his time,” a label the vice president will surely embrace if he runs for president in 2016.”
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Things are so bad now that it actually is not so easy to say that statement is wrong. Of course it could easily be called, “Damning with faint praise.” I would not be thrilled to have someone call me a greater statesman than Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Boehner, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, or a host of others I could name.
Yes. The addition of the phrase “...of his time...” makes the statement arguably correct.