Oh, Joe Joe Joe...
Dean
I have always liked Joe Biden.
No, I mean always, even back when I was a loyal Democrat, a guy who fervently voted for Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. I actually thought that whole "plagiarism" accusation that scuttled his candidacy in the 1980s was overblown.
But my goodness, Joe: Obama is the first black man to run for President who is 'articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'????
Joe. We all open our mouths and insert our feet now and then. I more than anyone understand that. But jeebus, dude, this makes "macaca" look like nothing by comparison.
Not that you can't fix it, Senator, but you'd better both apologize AND show a sense of humor about yourself when issuing that apology. Something along the lines of, "Oh jeez, that came out so wrong I'm totally embarrassed."
Baloney.
Next. Faster. Please.
Dean, if you can't see that this is just one more instance of the monumental double-standard that the media employs in dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia (meaning that only Conservatives can be racist, sexist or homophobic, Democrats are just misunderstood) then I don't know what to say about it.
Joe Biden is today what he has always been. A man with severe diarhhea of the mouth who gets away with rhetorical murder because the mainstream media protects its own.
What you mean, if someone called Obama a "Halfican America"? Ho ho ho! Oh wait...
At this point, it seems pretty clear that the transcript got it wrong (not even a question of a comma: a full on smacking together of two sentences that were separated by the interviewer talking), and people (mostly fellow Democrats) were smearing Biden based on mostly just the eagerness to smear him.
I'm also curious to know where "halfican American" came from. I've heard it floating around, not sure about the source.
The way it changes things is that it turns this (the reported fast transcript):
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Into this (from the actual audio file):
"Biden: I mean, you got the first, sorta, mainstream African-American.
Horowitz: Yeah.
Biden: Who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Which seems to me to be pretty much exactly the same things every commentator under the sun has said about Obama without any outrage for like, years now.
I suppose you could argue that Obama isn't really the first "mainstream" African American Presidential candidate, but that seems like a real quibble given that even at his best, Jesse Jackson won what? One state, once, ever? And Both Jesse and Sharpton, by the way, are neither clean (in the sense of non-corrupt) nor particularly good looking. It's especially odd to see the right getting in on this one, when they've had nothing but dismissive and nasty things to say about the very few African American candidates we've had (even Alan Keyes), and frankly, often with some good reason.
He should have said something like "All-American," but to me this is like that DC politician who got in serious trouble (and got fired) for saying "niggardly."
"Obama is the first black man to run for President, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
not the comma after the word President. And its obvious from the context that he meant clean as in clean cut - ie, acceptable and not a rabble rouser like Sharpton.
This is praise, not a smear. Quite unlike the systematic campaign against Obama from the right, including that now definitively false-proven allegation he attended a Islamic madrasah as a child. Really, even if you disdain DailyKos, this was also covered in detail on my own NB blog, and at eteraz.org.
http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=463858485
I think it's pretty undeniably clear that he's simply praising Obama as all those things, not saying that he's the first with any of them. The only thing he clearly says Obama is the first at is "mainstream."
Sure, Joe runs off at the mouth occasionally. But he tends to be more candid about how he thinks about things and why, and there is something about that attribute as a political modus operandi that appeals to honest man inside me.
I think what Biden was trying to explain is why the political phenomenom of Senator Barack Obama has gotten such a sudden and widespread grip on the body politic of this country. Of course his appearance is clean-cut. He looks as though he stepped right off a pages of a fashion magazine or popped out from the big screen in any suburban metroplex theater. But unlike Biden, he carefully guards his speech and mannerisms.
If Senator Obama suitable to be a president of the United States? If he gets the votes, you're damned right he is. The Constitution of the United States defines the qualifications for that office. The senator in question has those qualifications, and that's all I need.
Would I vote for him? Not if Rudi Giuliani is running against him.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Occasionally?? Come on, Arnold. The only time Joe Biden doesn't pontificate ad nauseum is when he is asleep--and I hear he talks a lot then, too.
Do I think Biden meant something like "all other black candidated have been inarticulate, stupid, dirty, and ugly"? Of course not. However, for all those trying to spin his words to their most favorable interpretation, it is inarguable that a sitting Republican Senator who made such a comment would have been publicly castigated for such a comment, and that Senator's marginalization would have been permanent. This comment would be used against a Republican for the rest of his career, and probably after his death, too.
We live in Biden country. At 5am this morning the Wife was getting dressed for work when she saw this on the news.
"He's such an idiot," she said. That's from a liberal-leaning native Delawarean.
Everytime Joe opens his mouth, the dice are thrown. Will he say something stupid? Will he sound like a puffed-up blue-blood who lost touch with the people in 1973? Will he say something that embarrasses the state of Delaware?
Given the odds, Biden is lucky Delaware is so small because frankly, the Wife is 100% right (when is she not?)
The man's an idiot.
--|PW|--
As Scott said: 'Every time he opens his mouth, the dice are thrown.'
I still remember his little plagiarism problem during an earlier run at the presidency....
I would agree that saying a guy is "clean" is a way of saying that he isn't tainted by scandal/corruption. I didn't have a problem with that part of it.
Now I agree though that he's been misquoted.
It is interesting to me how your analysis of possible "mainstream african americans" includes only Democrats and completely ignores Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas and others I could name.
I guess the fact that they come from an ideology that only won the last two Presidential elections and three of the last four off-year elections makes them radical right wing nut jobs.
HE IS AN ASS.
'nuff said.
Intelligence? Sowell is brighter than four or five Bidens wrapped together in a big blanket.
But that hasn't got much to do with politics. If Joe wins the Demo primaries, he's the Man. And that's that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
And if I win the Lotto, I'll book a trip to space.
Since I don't play the Lotto, the only way I'll win is if the winning ticket blows into my hand on the street. And yet somehow I still suspect I'll see orbit before Senator Biden sees the nomination.
It's interesting how none of them ever ran for President, which was the topic of the question, isn't it?
What was your point again? Oh right. Liberals are poopy! Ha ha, you slay me!
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.