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Biden's Racial Miscues

The very day Joseph Biden (Democratic Senator from Delaware) announced his candidacy, he was quoted by The Observer as saying some nasty things about the competition.  This is of course just typical of primary elections.  Candidates in the party strive nastily for the party's nomination, then when someone gets it, the losers try to put their support behind the winners with a straight face and explain away the smears they trot out previously.  It will be interesting to see how this works in the age of YouTube.  But what Biden will be remembered for is not an insult, but the compliment he paid to Barack Obama:

"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."

The backhanded compliment of calling a black person "articulate" is such a well-known verbal gaffe that one would think that Biden would know better.  Of course, what he immediately did was call up Obama as well as prominent black leaders Al Sharpton and Jessee Jackson.  Al Sharpton, according to Salon.com, has already affirmed that Biden's voting record does not paint him as an enemy of black Americans. 

(This may be more of a mixed blessing than an disaster Biden, because this makes Biden a guy who has to beg for the support of the established leadership, whereas Barack Obama got where he is and could go further without the help of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton (I seriously doubt he'll be courting Farrakahn).  There is a benefit not to be sneezed at in getting the candidate elected who is more beholden to you.  This is just in addition to the concern about whether a first generation African-American has quite the same concerns and problems as African-Americans who can trace their ancestry back to the days of slavery.)

The next thing Biden did was make an appearance on The Daily Show, which is becoming an increasingly important campaign stop.  Stewart, who has been known to let people off easy from time-to-time, made Biden eat crow:

Biden the Bullet

And of course this reminds everyone of Biden's racial gaffe from just a few months ago:

Biden off More than He Can Chew

Businesses like 7/11 or Dunkin' Donuts are of course nice entry-level businesses for entrepreneurs working to make it in this country, so at this moment in history many of them are owned by Indians and Pakistanis.  Few would suggest that it's simply verboten to josh somebody about this, there are times and places where it is not appropriate, or at least not politic.  In attempting to clean up that mess, Biden did an amusing dance on CNN's The Situation Room.  It's worth making fun of how he's clearly dissimulating -- neither answering the question nor representing honestly what he is actually on tape having said.  But this was his best option -- fillibustering around the question with positive statements about the growing Indian community in his state that are expansive enough to stretch out until the time constraints of the television segment allow him to be "saved by the bell" as it were:

Biden His Time

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 02/02/07 07:36 | link | comments |