Finally — a standard on which we can all agree! Er, wait … to which candidate exactly does Bernie Sanders refer?

Before we get to that, though, let’s start at the beginning.  Joe Biden told NPR last night that Bernie Sanders plans to endorse Hillary Clinton when asked whether the Democrats will unify behind her candidacy. He claimed to have spoken with Sanders, and implied that Bernie had committed to it:

Vice President Joe Biden is confident that Bernie Sanders is going to endorse Hillary Clinton and that the Democratic party will unify.

“Oh, I’ve talked to Bernie, Bernie’s going to endorse her, this is going to work out,” Biden said in an interview with Rachel Martin, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition. “The Democrats are coalescing even before this occurs.”

Hold your horses, Sanders told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes shortly afterward. “I talked to Joe, I think it was three weeks ago,” Sanders replied when Hayes interrupted their conversation to discuss this then-breaking news. The endorsement’s not a done deal — although later in the conversation, it certainly sounded that way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yICPV-UdjY

In fact, Sanders pledges an all-out effort to stop Trump from winning … and his first motivation seems awfully ironic:

Chris, let me back it up by saying I’m going to do everything that I can to defeat Donald Trump, I think for a variety of reasons. Number one, he’s a pathological liar. That’s not a good quality to have in a president.

No, it’s not. And how exactly does Sanders plan on stopping Hillary Clinton from being president, if that’s the disqualifier? Her entire presidential-campaign career has featured a long string of lies, from the “Tuzla dash” to her e-mail server, and a cascade of points in between. (Remember “dead broke” in 2014? Immigrant grandparents? The bombed-out Belfast hotel? Her dreams of becoming a Marine, and an astronaut? Standing in front of the coffins of those killed in Benghazi and blaming a YouTube video, then lying about it when the families challenged her? )

Needless to say, Sanders isn’t going to talk about that pathological liar. He had more than a year to attack Hillary on that point to benefit his own campaign, and took a pass on it just as he largely took a pass on the e-mail scandal. Biden doesn’t need to talk to Sanders now to know that he’ll soon go all in for Hillary. He’s always been halfway there anyway.