Biden Sinks Presidential Ship While Still In Drydock

[Corlyss_D]

Joe Biden's Obama drama
In the YouTube age, the motormouthed senator's not-so-clean comments may have already shorted out his '08 campaign.

By Walter Shapiro

Feb. 02, 2007 | Short of publicly appealing to St. Jude, Sen. Joe Biden could not have more dramatically signaled his distress. Asked by Jon Stewart Wednesday night on "The Daily Show" about his ill-advised putdowns of his presidential rivals -- especially a racially patronizing comment about Barack Obama -- Biden, a Catholic, responded by crossing himself. Stewart's deadpan response: "By the way, he doesn't have jurisdiction here, so that's not going to help."

Thursday afternoon, continuing his self-abnegation tour, Biden appeared on Al Sharpton's radio show to express his "regret" over the way his comments were perceived, and to reiterate his "love" for the preacher turned perennial protest candidate.

For those who may have been off participating in a sensory deprivation experiment, the Obama remark -- which launched a thousand lips -- was embedded in an interview with the New York Observer, published Wednesday, the day that Biden released a webcast formally declaring his candidacy for the White House. Here is what Biden said about Obama (though the punctuation is subject to debate, as can be heard on the audio): "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."

What may be the real storybook here is how quickly a presidential candidate can become a national laughingstock with 25 ill-chosen words. (Of course, former Sen. George Allen, once a strong prospective 2008 presidential contender, achieved the same result with just one word: "macaca." But then, Allen is terse with his slurs, while Biden is notoriously verbose.)

A symbol of Biden's predicament was that the Delaware senator could not decide which verbal sin warranted the biggest apology. He abjectly apologized to Jesse Jackson and Sharpton -- both prior presidential candidates -- for implying that they were not as "articulate and bright and clean" as Obama. Biden also gave contradictory explanations of what he meant by "clean," saying in a press conference that it was a shorthand for "clean as a whistle," and then insisting to Stewart and Sharpton that he was praising Obama's "fresh" ideas.

While a sports announcer these days would probably be admonished for calling a black athlete "articulate" (as if this were an unusual quality for African-Americans), Biden's punishment is likely to be cruelly meted out in the polls (where he is already a negligible factor) and in fundraising (where he faces a daunting prospect in corralling the $30 million that is a bare-bones price of entry into the 2008 race).

Biden, reflecting the occupational hazard of having spent more than half his life in the wind chamber of the Senate, is a classic motormouth who routinely speaks before he thinks. Yet, while Biden's remarks about Obama suggest a tin ear on racial matters, his liberal legislative record -- as Sharpton testified -- points in a completely opposite direction.

What, then, is the proper way in presidential politics to weigh off-the-cuff words against deeds? This is a serious question in an election cycle in which YouTube may emerge as a dominant communications tool -- both by allowing candidates to speak to the voters free of the constraints of 30-second TV spots and by spreading at warp speed embarrassing candid-camera campaign moments.

Two long-ago campaign gaffes, involving Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Ronald Reagan in 1980, illustrate both the risks and the rewards of constructing an elaborate character analysis based on a few words that may -- or may not -- reflect the candidate's deepest beliefs.

Having soared to the front of the Democratic presidential pack in storybook fashion, Carter, then a one-term former Georgia governor, stumbled badly when he said that he had no objection to neighborhoods preserving their "ethnic purity." Against the backdrop of the civil-rights struggle and the battle over mandatory school busing, Carter's maladroit use of the two-word phrase "ethnic purity" convinced many Northern liberals that on racial matters he was, at heart, still an old-fashioned Southerner.

What followed was a frenzied debate over whether the front-runner for the Democratic nomination was, to put it bluntly, a racist. Carter was saved by testimonials from Atlanta-based black leaders like Andrew Young. In hindsight -- given both Carter's record as president and his post-White House career -- the furor was irrelevant, demeaning and absurd. But it underscores the ease with which a presidential candidate can be demonized by his word choice.

(Department of full disclosure: I worked as a spear carrier on the 1976 Carter campaign and later became a White House speechwriter for him. But the "ethnic purity" flap occurred before I signed on with his campaign.)

Four years later, running for president against Carter, Reagan blurted out his informed scientific judgment that trees cause more pollution than automobile exhaust. Even back in the days before polar bears were thought to be imperiled, Reagan's comments touched off a firestorm hot enough to melt the ice caps. They also fit neatly into a larger pattern of breathtaking environmental ignorance by the former California governor, since Reagan had also claimed during the campaign that oil slicks in the Pacific Ocean helped fight infectious diseases and that the haze over the Smoky Mountains had curative powers for tuberculosis patients.

Reagan's handlers developed an inspired solution to the problem of an engaging presidential candidate whose head was filled with more misinformation than Dick Cheney's office. They perfected a technique pioneered by Richard Nixon: keeping the candidate as far away from spontaneous conversations with the press or voters as possible. Everything in Reagan's campaigns and much of his presidency was choreographed down to the smallest detail on 3-by-5 cards.

Looking back, Earth Day voters who recoiled at Reagan's words got it right -- this was indeed a would-be president with the environmental sensitivity of an actor turned pitchman for General Electric. In this case, the blurted words reflected a larger truth about Reagan's beliefs.

It is worth pondering what are the lessons that the 2008 presidential candidates and their advisors are likely to draw from Biden's latest display of hoof-in-mouth disease. Their natural instinct is to conclude that this is what Biden gets for veering away from bland talking points and revealing how he actually feels about his front-running rivals. If anything, for better or for worse, it may reinforce the notion that the message discipline of Hillary Clinton and other robo-candidates is the way to successfully run for president in the 21st century.

Biden's criticisms in the Observer article of both Clinton (everyone knows her but "she can't break out of 30 percent") and John Edwards ("I don't think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about" on Iraq) represent a hard-edged interpretation of their weaknesses as candidates. Impolitic as his words about Clinton and Edwards may sound, they are the comparative arguments that second-tier candidates like Biden probably must make if they have any chance of breaking out of the pack. But there was no strategic logic behind Biden's comments about Obama, especially if you accept Biden's claims that he was trying to praise the Illinois senator.

After George W. Bush, few Democrats want a president with a propensity for verbal miscues. But Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is also one of the most seasoned experts in the Democratic Party on global strategy and probably would have been John Kerry's secretary of state. In an ideal world, Biden's candidacy would be tested by the validity of his views on the Iraq war and domestic policy. But this is the unforgiving sphere of presidential politics -- and Biden may have crossed himself off the 2008 list with the kind of comments that caused him to cross himself on Comedy Central.

-- By Walter Shapiro
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/02/biden/
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It was bound to happen sooner or later, since Biden is another leading member of the world's largest Society of Gasbags. Two and a half years ago when he was preparing to succeed Powell as Kerry's Sec. State, he pompously announced that there was no such thing as state sponsored terrorism any more. Anybody that dumb belongs in the Senate, not in the Executive.

[Corlyss_D]

Is Obama Black Enough?
By Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates

For all the predictable outrage Joe Biden's recent comments about Barack Obama elicited, the gaffe put a spotlight on one of the more unfortunate forces fueling Obamania. Ever since Barack Obama first ascended the national stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, pundits have been tripping over themselves to point out the difference between him and the average Joe from the South Side. Obama is biracial, and has a direct connection with Africa. He is articulate, young and handsome. He does not feel the need to yell "Reparations now!" into any available microphone.

But this is a double-edged sword. As much as his biracial identity has helped Obama build a sizable following in middle America, it's also opened a gap for others to question his authenticity as a black man. In calling Obama the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," the implication was that the black people who are regularly seen by whites — or at least those who aspire to the highest office in the land — are none of these things. But give Biden credit — at least he acknowledged Obama's identity.

The same can't be said for others. "Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan," Stanley Crouch recently sniffed in a New York Daily News column entitled "What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me." "Black, in our political and social vocabulary, means those descended from West African slaves," wrote Debra Dickerson on the liberal website Salon. Writers like TIME and New Republic columnist Peter Beinart have argued that Obama is seen as a "good black," and thus has less of following among black people. Meanwhile, agitators like Al Sharpton are seen as the authentic "bad blacks." Obama's trouble, asserted Beinart, is that he will have to prove his loyalty to The People in a way that "bad blacks" never have to. Obama, for his part, settled this debate some time ago. "If I'm outside your building trying to catch a cab," he told Charlie Rose, "they're not saying, 'Oh, there's a mixed race guy.'" Obama understands what all blacks, including myself, know all too well — that Amadou Diallo's foreign ancestry could not prevent his wallet from morphing into a gun in the eyes of the police.

For years pundits excoriated young black kids for attacking other smart successful black kids by questioning their blackness. But this is suddenly permissible for presidential candidates. Beinart's good black/bad black dynamic is the sort of armchair logic that comes from not spending much time around actual black people. As the New Republic points out, Sharpton has an overstated following among black people. In 2004, when Sharpton ran for President, his traction among his alleged base was underwhelming. In South Carolina, where almost half of all registered Dems were black, both John Kerry and John Edwards received twice as many black votes as Sharpton. But this hasn't stopped media outlets from phoning Sharpton whenever something even remotely racial goes down. And it hasn't stopped writers from touting Sharpton's presumed popularity among black people, as opposed to "palatable" black people like Obama.

The black-on-black argument seemed to be bolstered by recent polls showing Obama significantly trailing Hillary Clinton among black voters. But reading into poll numbers that way is a clever device, hatched by mainstream (primarily white) journalists who are shocked — shocked! — to discover that black people aren't as dumbstruck by Obama as they are.

What they fail to understand is that African-Americans meet other intelligent, articulate African-Americans all the time. In almost every cycle since 1984, at least one of these brave chaps has run for President. Forgive us if we don't automatically pledge our votes to Obama and instead make judgments based on things besides skin color — like, heaven forbid, issues. Joe Biden may have misspoken — and in the process probably destroyed any remote hopes of winning the nomination — but he spoke truthfully for a lot of his ilk; Obamania is rooted in the belief that 50 Cent, not Barack Obama, represents the real black America.

Back in the real world, Obama is married to a black woman. He goes to a black church. He's worked with poor people on the South Side of Chicago, and still lives there. That someone given the escape valve of biraciality would choose to be black, would see some beauty in his darker self and still care more about health care and public education than reparations and Confederate flags is just too much for many small-minded racists, both black and white, to comprehend.

Barack Obama's real problem isn't that he's too white — it's that he's too black.

* http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 36,00.html
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Crouch, a black conservative, was probably onto something that never matured when Powell tantalized us all with his possible candidacy. Powell was not of "American stock," i.e., descended from African slaves brought to the United States, and he didn't grow up in that mindset. There was some talk among Democrats in those days that blacks would not vote for him. I don't think it can be said of Obama because Obama is a Democrat. If he does get on the ticket, the blacks will vote for him 150%.

[Donald Isler]

Corlyss' dream Demcratic ticket for '08: Kerry and Biden.

[Ralph]

I think most political pundits understand that Obama is putting himself forward for exposure but without the slightest belief he can garner the nomination for 08. But if he wants to run in the future, and clearly he does, he can't hide now.

[Barry]

He could also be thinking about getting the VEEP nomination. Although my early pick for that on the Democratic side, assuming Hillary wins the nomination, is Senator Baye.

[Agnes Selby]

The best advice to Mr. Biden is to "Lie Low". After all, you cant's put your foot in your mouth if you don't open it first.


-------------------------------------------

[jbuck919]

Biden, who is a dinosaur, never had any chance in the first place and is simply a convenient story because of his faux pas. When I first heard that "Biden might be running" I thought "Oh, I didn't know old Joe had a politician son."

Now what's this about Senator Baye, Barry?

[Barry]

Now what's this about Senator Baye, Barry?

Just a guess, John. He's fairly moderate by Democratic standards, which is good for the general election (meaning Hillary wouldn't want to pick him until after she has the nomination locked up; possibly not until convention time or close to then). He's acknowledged that the Democrats need to cut into their credibility gap on national defense to go back to winning the White House and rebuilding any kind of long-term majority, while also being very critical of the way Iraq has been handled. He almost ran for the nomination himself, which may be a sign that he'd be willing to leave the Senate for the executive branch and he and Hillary recently went to Iraq together. I'm sure they had plenty of time to talk on the plane and on the ground.

[Barry]

Pardon my lousy spelling again. It's Bayh.

[RebLem]

I think most political pundits understand that Obama is putting himself forward for exposure but without the slightest belief he can garner the nomination for 08. But if he wants to run in the future, and clearly he does, he can't hide now.

I agree. Anyone who doesn't get his hand in in '08 takes the risk that by 2012, Eliot Spitzer will be the coming thing. And I'd like somebody to ask Hillary these questions:

"If you should win, I presume you would want to be president for two terms, and leave office in January, 2017. That would mean that for a period of 28 years--from January, 1989-January, 2017, the President of the United States would have been either a Bush or a Clinton. Do you think that is good for the country? Don't you think it would make us look uncomfortably like the Dominican Republic? And its obvious you are grooming Chelsea for a political career and that the Bush family is grooming Jeb's son Prescott (formerly known as 'The Little Brown One') for the same thing. Is it really a good thing for two families of Caesars to monopolize the presidency? Does it not begin to diminish us as a people and a nation?"

I have raised another point here before, but I never got any feedback on it; perhaps someone will bite this time. I don't know why there is all this talk about other candidates quaking at the prospect of an Obama candidacy. I think they should beg him to run, even finance his candidacy, if necessary. The reason: the prospect that he would keep Al Sharpton out of the race. I think many voters--enough to have made the difference between victory and defeat--voted against the Democrats in 2004 because they were disgusted with the other candidates in primary forums treating Sharpton as if he were a responsible, respectable person. With him out of the picture, that would no longer be the case.

[jbuck919]

I have raised another point here before, but I never got any feedback on it; perhaps someone will bite this time. I don't know why there is all this talk about other candidates quaking at the prospect of an Obama candidacy. I think they should beg him to run, even finance his candidacy, if necessary. The reason: the prospect that he would keep Al Sharpton out of the race. I think many voters--enough to have made the difference between victory and defeat--voted against the Democrats in 2004 because they were disgusted with the other candidates in primary forums treating Sharpton as if he were a responsible, respectable person. With him out of the picture, that would no longer be the case.

You must know something I don't know about this race, because Sharpton has about as much relevance to it as Harold Stassen did whenever he was running. Sharpton would get two votes: His own, and Tawana Brawley's (wait a minute, she's a Republican).

[Ralph]

I have raised another point here before, but I never got any feedback on it; perhaps someone will bite this time. I don't know why there is all this talk about other candidates quaking at the prospect of an Obama candidacy. I think they should beg him to run, even finance his candidacy, if necessary. The reason: the prospect that he would keep Al Sharpton out of the race. I think many voters--enough to have made the difference between victory and defeat--voted against the Democrats in 2004 because they were disgusted with the other candidates in primary forums treating Sharpton as if he were a responsible, respectable person. With him out of the picture, that would no longer be the case.

You must know something I don't know about this race, because Sharpton has about as much relevance to it as Harold Stassen did whenever he was running. Sharpton would get two votes: His own, and Tawana Brawley's (wait a minute, she's a Republican).

*****

Sharpton has no national political future but don't underestimate his strong attraction among black voters in New York. He's moved to the center and largely eschews polarizing statements and persons these days. As to the Tawana Brawley Hoax, very few remember it, certainly almost none of my students have even heard of that disgrace.

I don't know if Sharpton could win a congressional seat (residence might prevent that) but if he could run he'd get a fair number of votes.

[DavidRoss]

I don't understand why Biden's comments are newsworthy. He's been making incredibly stupid statements on every subject under the sun for the past three decades. What would really be newsworthy is if he were to say something intelligent, thoughtful, truthful, and insightful for a change.[/b]

[Barry]

I don't understand why Biden's comments are newsworthy. He's been making incredibly stupid statements on every subject under the sun for the past three decades. What would really be newsworthy is if he were to say something intelligent, thoughtful, truthful, and insightful for a change.[/b]

I'm not surprised that the media jumped all over his statements. They jump all over everything now. But I generally agree with you. It would be more of a story if a candidate who had even an outside chance of winning made the statements.

[Barry]

Sharpton may have some minor impact on shifting votes during the primaries, but he's out of the race for so long by the time the general election comes around that I don't think he has any impact on it. Even, if his influence in New York is as big as Ralph says, New York would go solidly Democrat in a general election with or without him.

[RebLem]

Yes, Biden's statement bears a superficial resemblance to John Kerry's flubs. But I also hear him on CSPAN yesterday in a speech before the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting. The entire speech can be found here:
http://www.joebiden.com/getinformed/speeches?id=0079

In it, he said, in part,

Here at home, it will not be enough for the next president to have the right plans.

The American people must believe that our nominee understands what they've been dealing with in their daily lives the last 6 years.

They know we need an energy policy to free us from the axis of oil and begin to reverse global warming.

But they don't believe that Washington understands just how hard it is to heat their home, or fill up their tank.

I understand because I remember. I remember being a kid and answering the door when the bill collector came to shut off the electricity and telling him my mother wasn't home.

Americans know we need national health care.

But they doubt Washington understands what it feels like to lie in bed, like 47 million Americans without health insurance, looking over at your pregnant wife, and wondering what happens if your baby is premature. Will I lose my home?

I understand because I remember being rolled into a operating room 20 years ago, after they told me that my chances weren't good, but thanking God that at least my family wouldn't be left in debt because I had insurance.

Americans know that a college degree is a ticket to the middle class.

But they wonder whether Washington understands what it feels like for a father or mother to look in the eyes of their child knowing there is no way to pay to help them get there.

I understand because I remember. I remember my father's face as he was refused a bank loan to send me to college.

I understand, like many of you in this room, these struggles and aspirations of the American people.

Because they are ours.

They represent our values.

America's values.

And I will fight with every fiber in my being to keep America focused on the values that unite us, rather than the wedge issues used to divide us.

The American people are ready. And so am I.

For not once in our history have the American people let their country down.

I never heard John Kerry talk like that.

[DavidRoss]

I will fight with every fiber in my being to keep America focused on the values that unite us, rather than the wedge issues used to divide us.

If you believe this then I'm sure you'll want to hear about the investment opportunity of a lifetime!

[Barry]

I will fight with every fiber in my being to keep America focused on the values that unite us, rather than the wedge issues used to divide us.

If you believe this then I'm sure you'll want to hear about the investment opportunity of a lifetime!

And I sure hope some reporter is going to dig into that bill-collector at the door story .

[Corlyss_D]

He could also be thinking about getting the VEEP nomination. Although my early pick for that on the Democratic side, assuming Hillary wins the nomination, is Senator Baye.

Where's the electoral payoff in having a midwestern white centrist on the Dem ticket?

[Corlyss_D]

I don't understand why Biden's comments are newsworthy.

I didn't either. He don't have a prayer of getting the nomination as long as he can speak.

Yes, Biden's statement bears a superficial resemblance to John Kerry's flubs.

No rational person would have thought what Biden said was in any sense a flub. It's just another example of the a favorite media gimmick: "Let's you and him fight."

speech before the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting. The entire speech can be found here:

Methinks your assessment of our stamina is too generous.

[Barry]

He could also be thinking about getting the VEEP nomination. Although my early pick for that on the Democratic side, assuming Hillary wins the nomination, is Senator Baye.

Where's the electoral payoff in having a midwestern white centrist on the Dem ticket?

In getting some of those midwestern white swing voters.........if the VEEP nominee makes any difference at all that is.

[Corlyss_D]

if the VEEP nominee makes any difference at all that is.

Bingo! People don't vote for VP. All the selection serves to do is encourage the voters that the P candidate can make reasonably responsible decisions. What Hillary would need is a conservative southern governor in the slot! Oooos! Their all Republicans! Never mind . . . .

[Corlyss_D]

His Mouth Runneth Over

Presidential campaigns grow longer and longer -- so much so that it now seems astonishing to recall that Bill Clinton announced his 1992 run as late as October of the previous year. But while the political marathon stretches out, the time it takes a presidential campaign to implode has shrunk down to as little as a few hours.

Take Joe Biden, who managed to announce his bid for the White House and effectively end it in the same news cycle after he gave an interview in which he called Barack Obama the "first mainstream African American" candidate who was "articulate and bright and clean." Mr. Biden tried to repair the damage -- even subjecting himself to the ribbing of Jon Stewart of "Comedy Central" -- but no one believes he can now recover. Even his close friends say he is too accident-prone to be the party's nominee under any circumstances.

Consider the Biden rap sheet. Last year, he visited South Carolina and tried to bond with a local audience by reminding them that both their state and his home state of Delaware had been "slave states." Just a few months earlier, he was talking up the cultural diversity of Wilmington, Delaware by boasting that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have an Indian accent."

None of this is evidence that Mr. Biden is a racist, merely that he is the worst political chatterbox since Hubert Humphrey left us. "He simply doesn't know when to stop talking," says an exasperated staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Mr. Biden presides over as chair. "He knows he has a problem, and will say in mid-anecdote that he should stop talking. But then he keeps on going."

Mr. Biden may continue to slog through Rotary Clubs and union halls in New Hampshire and Iowa for a few more months until it becomes obvious to him his candidacy is going nowhere. At that point, his colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee hope they can mount an intervention and find him some help -- is there a Talkers Anonymous? The alternative may be to have Senate oversight of U.S. foreign policy drown under an ocean of Biden verbiage and non sequiturs.

-- John Fund
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Maybe we should send him to Tehran to run a bus drivers' strike . . .