After apparently forgetting he had compared impeachment to lynching years before President Donald Trump did so Tuesday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden has apologized for the comparison — while still maintaining that it's worse that Trump said it.

How did we get here?

President Trump called the Democrats' impeachment inquiry a "lynching" in a Tuesday tweet.

Predictably, every prominent Democrat made a point to condemn a comparison of a legal investigation to an unjustified mob murder — particularly because lynching has dark racial connotations in American history. So, Joe Biden jumped on the bandwagon.

Next, everyone reminds Biden that he went on television in 1998 and compared the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton to lynching.

Joe Biden in 1998 uses term “lynching" on impeachment youtu.be

An apology, but not really

Backed into a corner after being seen on video doing exactly the "abhorrent" and "despicable" thing Trump did, Joe Biden, in one tweet, apologized for what he said and attempted to differentiate his lynching comparison from the president's.

Apparently the argument Biden is making here is that he said "lynching" accidentally, and he's really sorry, but Trump uses it with the deliberate intention of stoking racial divides. Even though, it must be emphasized, the two men used the word in the exact same context.

This is Biden's move, which he is also employing with regard to Ukraine. President Trump is corrupt for allegedly tying aid money to a political motive, but Biden is not corrupt for doing the same thing. President Trump is corrupt for allowing his children to profit from foreign business, but Biden is not corrupt for allowing his son to do the same.

Although it still doesn't seem to be hurting Biden in the polls with Democratic voters, it may be the case that Biden is much more like Trump than he cares to admit.