Biden The Democratic racist?

miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
edited January 2007 in A Moving Train
Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Read More about what this democrat mainstreamer and presidential hopefully has to say.


Biden Unbound: Lays Into
Clinton, Obama, Edwards
Loquacious Senator, Democratic Candidate on Hillary: ‘Four of 10 Is the Max You Can Get?’ Edwards ‘Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About’
By Jason Horowitz




Senator Joseph Biden doesn’t think highly of the Iraq policies of some of the other Democrats who are running for President.

To hear him tell it, Hillary Clinton’s position is calibrated, confusing and “a very bad idea.” John Edwards doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is pushing a recipe for Armageddon in the Middle East. Barack Obama is offering charming but insubstantial fluff. And all of them are playing politics.

“Let me put it this way,” Mr. Biden said. “You didn’t hear any one of them get in this debate at all until they announced for President.”

Mr. Biden, who ran an ill-fated campaign for President in 1988, is a man who believes his time has finally come, announcing this week that he was filing papers to make his 2008 Presidential bid official. Although he admits to a tendency to “bloviate,” he thinks that an aggressive advocate with rough edges might be just what the party needs right now. “Democrats nominated the perfect blow-dried candidates in 2000 and 2004,” he said, “and they couldn’t connect.”

Though Mr. Biden, 64, has never achieved his national ambitions, he has in recent years emerged as one of the party’s go-to experts on foreign policy. In the past week, he has spearheaded the Democratic pushback against the President’s plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, opposing the move with a non-binding resolution that his party has rallied around.

On a recent weekday afternoon, he was discussing his rivals over a bowl of tomato soup in the corner of a diner in Delaware, about a 15-minute drive from his Senate office. He wore a red cardigan and blue shirt, periodically raising his raspy voice over the sound of loudspeakers summoning customers to pick up their sandwiches. He had showed up carrying a Mead notebook filled with handwritten talking points, but once he’d gotten started, he closed the book and pushed it aside.

The subject he prefers to talk about these days—particularly when contrasting himself with his prospective Presidential rivals—is Iraq.

Addressing Mrs. Clinton’s latest proposal to cap American troops and to threaten Iraqi leaders with cuts in funding, Mr. Biden lowered his voice and leaned in close over the table.

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“From the part of Hillary’s proposal, the part that really baffles me is, ‘We’re going to teach the Iraqis a lesson.’ We’re not going to equip them? O.K. Cap our troops and withdraw support from the Iraqis? That’s a real good idea.”

The result of Mrs. Clinton’s position on Iraq, Mr. Biden says, would be “nothing but disaster.”

Most early polls show Mrs. Clinton as the party’s clear front-runner. Mr. Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is firmly in the thick of a pack of third-tier candidates. Still, he thinks that at such a precarious point in the nation’s history, voters are seeking someone with his level of experience to take the helm.

“Are they going to turn to Hillary Clinton?” Biden asked, lowering his voice to a hush to explain why Mrs. Clinton won’t win the election.

“Everyone in the world knows her,” he said. “Her husband has used every single legitimate tool in his behalf to lock people in, shut people down. Legitimate. And she can’t break out of 30 percent for a choice for Democrats? Where do you want to be? Do you want to be in a place where 100 percent of the Democrats know you? They’ve looked at you for the last three years. And four out of 10 is the max you can get?”

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”

(After the interview with Mr. Biden and shortly before press time, Mr. Obama proposed legislation that would require all American combat brigades to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March 2008.)

Mr. Biden seemed to reserve a special scorn for Mr. Edwards, who suffered from a perceived lack of depth in foreign policy in the Presidential election of 2004.

“I don’t think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about,” Mr. Biden said, when asked about Mr. Edwards’ advocacy of the immediate withdrawal of about 40,000 American troops from Iraq.

“John Edwards wants you and all the Democrats to think, ‘I want us out of there,’ but when you come back and you say, ‘O.K., John’”—here, the word “John” became an accusatory, mocking refrain—“‘what about the chaos that will ensue? Do we have any interest, John, left in the region?’ Well, John will have to answer yes or no. If he says yes, what are they? What are those interests, John? How do you protect those interests, John, if you are completely withdrawn? Are you withdrawn from the region, John? Are you withdrawn from Iraq, John? In what period? So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. So for me, what I think you have to do is have a strategic notion. And they may have it—they are just smart enough not to enunciate it.”

The targets of Mr. Biden’s criticism, whether out of shock, indifference or a calculation that it would be unwise in this case to meet fire with fire, declined to respond in kind.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton wrote in an e-mail: “Senator Obama opposed the Iraq War from Day 1 and has articulated clear principles in how to address the tragic mistakes President Bush has made there.” And as for rest—including Mr. Biden’s use of the words “articulate” and “nice-looking” to describe the Senator from Illinois—the spokesman said, “Senator Biden’s words speak for themselves.” The press offices for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards declined to say anything at all.

By contrast with what Mr. Biden describes alternately as his opponents’ caution and their detachment from reality, the Senator from Delaware has for months been pushing a comprehensive plan to split Iraq into autonomous Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish ethnic regions that is controversial, to say the least.
Under the plan, local policing and laws will be the responsibility of regional authorities. Most of the American troops would be withdrawn, with small numbers remaining to help with anti-terrorism operations. The ensuing chaos from ethnic migrations within Iraq would be contained with the help of political pressure created by a conference of Iraq’s neighbors.

But the idea of an American endorsement of Iraqi federation along those lines has drawn criticism from just about every ideological corner of the foreign-policy establishment. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, another potential 2008 candidate who played a major role in negotiating the peace talks that ended the war in Bosnia, said in a recent interview that the Biden plan would have people in mixed cities like Baghdad “fleeing for their lives.” Richard Perle, one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq, who resigned from his advisory position at the Pentagon in 2003 after a conflict-of-interest scandal, called the idea “harebrained.” And perhaps most notably, the original author of the partition plan, former Council on Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, has suggested that spiraling chaos on the ground in Iraq may have already rendered it unworkable.

Mr. Biden counters their criticism by insisting that Iraq has already fractured along ethnic lines, and that the only pragmatic approach at this point is to police the process in a way that could prevent a wider civil war and, eventually, lead to a sort of stability.

“You have to give them breathing room,” he said.

The Iraq he envisions has three ethnically homogenous enclaves, with a central government responsible for securing the country’s international borders and distributing oil revenues.

He’d put the Shiite majority in the south, limiting their geographic control but keeping them from being drawn into a wider Sunni-Shiite conflict.

He’d move the Sunni majority into the oil-poor Anbar province in the West, but they would be guaranteed a cut of oil revenues worth billions of dollars. Mr. Biden’s hope is that the oil money and relative calm would drain the loyal Baathist insurgency of support while simultaneously making the province less amenable to Al Qaeda provocateurs.

“The argument that you make with Sunni tribal leaders is, ‘You are not going to get back to the point where you run the show,’” said Mr. Biden. They will have to be made to understand that “you get a much bigger piece of the pie by giving up a little of the pie.”

He’d keep the Kurds up in the north, where they already enjoy a measure of de facto autonomy, but would seek guarantees that they would not take it upon themselves to purge Sunni residents from the mixed city of Kirkuk, or to lay exclusive claim to the enormous oil resources in that region, or to secede from Iraq by forming an independent Kurdistan.

Mr. Biden said he has made the argument to Kurdish leaders over the course of his seven trips to Iraq as follows: “You will be eaten alive by the Turks and the Iranians, they will attack you, there will be an all-out war.”

The clear implication is that the United States, not for the first time, would be unable to protect them. “I don’t see how we could,” he said.

Mr. Biden disagrees with foreign leaders like Britain’s Tony Blair and Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, who say that the key to fixing Iraq’s problems is solving the dispute between Israel and Palestinians.

“They are wrong, because I think it is a veiled way to do what the Europeans and the Arabists have always wanted to do, which is back Israel into a corner,” he said. “They still blame Israel.”

Mr. Biden says that support for his Iraq plan is growing. The influential New York Senator Chuck Schumer has declared at various times that he supports the plan—albeit in an uncharacteristically quiet manner—as has Michael O’Hanlon, a prominent Iraq policy expert at the Brookings Institution.

But their support, for Mr. Biden, is almost an afterthought. If one thing is clear about him, it is that he doesn’t mind being alone.

“They may be politically right, and I may be politically wrong,” he said. “But I believe I am substantively right, and their substantive approaches are not very deep and will not get us where I want to go.”
America...the greatest Country in the world.
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Comments

  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    Maybe I am missing something, but where is the racist comment? Do you even know what a racist comment is?
  • miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
    Maybe I am missing something, but where is the racist comment? Do you even know what a racist comment is?

    “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
    America...the greatest Country in the world.
  • inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
    miller8966 wrote:
    “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

    shit, that's as bad an Kramer going off in the club...thanks for keeping on top of things....:rolleyes:
  • miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
    inmytree wrote:
    shit, that's as bad an Kramer going off in the club...thanks for keeping on top of things....:rolleyes:

    Kramer isnt running for president.
    America...the greatest Country in the world.
  • inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
    miller8966 wrote:
    Kramer isnt running for president.

    not yet...:)
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    miller8966 wrote:
    “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

    Barack Obama is the first black US Senator to fit all those credentials. There's nothing racist at all about his comments, and I think that Senator Obama would be flattered that Joe Biden used those words to describe him.

    I'm beginning to think you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
  • Barack Obama is the first black US Senator to fit all those credentials. There's nothing racist at all about his comments, and I think that Senator Obama would be flattered that Joe Biden used those words to describe him.

    I'm beginning to think you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about.


    Edward W. Brooke Republican Massachusetts 1967-1979
    Carol Moseley Braun Democrat Illinois 1993-1999

    So for example, these two fine senators weren't articulate, stupid as shit, dirty as hell and fuckin ugly.

    I guess I don't get it. Fill me in about how that comment wasn't racist to those Senators and black politicians in general?
    www.myspace.com/olafvonmastadon
  • Edward W. Brooke Republican Massachusetts 1967-1979
    Carol Moseley Braun Democrat Illinois 1993-1999

    So for example, these two fine senators weren't articulate, stupid as shit, dirty as hell and fuckin ugly.

    I guess I don't get it. Fill me in about how that comment wasn't racist to those Senators and black politicians in general?

    He never said that he was the first senator to fit that description. He was asked about other democratic contenders, so I am assuming that he meant he was the first presidential contender that was all of those things..
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • floyd1975floyd1975 Posts: 1,350
    In politics, you do not say shit like this and expect people to read into your words. He botched the quote. It's a Kerry-like case of tasting his own foot.
  • zstillings wrote:
    In politics, you do not say shit like this and expect people to read into your words. He botched the quote. It's a Kerry-like case of tasting his own foot.


    I'll agree with that.
    www.myspace.com/olafvonmastadon
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    Edward W. Brooke Republican Massachusetts 1967-1979
    Carol Moseley Braun Democrat Illinois 1993-1999

    So for example, these two fine senators weren't articulate, stupid as shit, dirty as hell and fuckin ugly.

    I guess I don't get it. Fill me in about how that comment wasn't racist to those Senators and black politicians in general?

    Had he said "unlike previous African American senators, Barack Obama is..." then you would have grounds to say that. Joe Biden is not a racist, good lord
  • floyd1975floyd1975 Posts: 1,350
    Had he said "unlike previous African American senators, Barack Obama is..." then you would have grounds to say that. Joe Biden is not a racist, good lord

    He didn't limit it to those two. His words opened it up to all black people who have ever been in the mainstream.
  • Had he said "unlike previous African American senators, Barack Obama is..." then you would have grounds to say that. Joe Biden is not a racist, good lord


    "What do you think the "storybook" line was then? Like it's so unbelievable that a black person has those traits. It's right in front of your face man.

    I believe he just fucked up. Just like Kerry did. I don't believe he's racist either, he just had a little Freudian slip or didn't think before speaking.
    www.myspace.com/olafvonmastadon
  • inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
    zstillings wrote:
    In politics, you do not say shit like this and expect people to read into your words. He botched the quote. It's a Kerry-like case of tasting his own foot.

    spot on, as usual...
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

    Does it change anyones opinion say if you put a period after "African American". If you read it straight through I can see how it COULD look like a racist comment, however like this:

    "I mean, you got the first mainstream African American (running for President). Who is articulate, and bright, and clean, and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

    it doesn't carry the same weight.
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    "What do you think the "storybook" line was then? Like it's so unbelievable that a black person has those traits. It's right in front of your face man.

    I believe he just fucked up. Just like Kerry did. I don't believe he's racist either, he just had a little Freudian slip or didn't think before speaking.

    Have you ever read Obamas story? It is a storybook. Why is it hard to believe that maybe he was praising Obama instead of turning comments where his race is mentioned into a racist comment.
  • Solat13Solat13 Posts: 6,996
    He never said that he was the first senator to fit that description. He was asked about other democratic contenders, so I am assuming that he meant he was the first presidential contender that was all of those things..

    So I take it that Biden thinks Jesse Jackson who won 5 primaries in the 1984 election was not articulate, clean and a nice looking guy.

    I don't think Biden is a racist, but in today's age where every little soundbite is scrutinized he's basically thrown away whatever remote hopes he had at the nomination.
    - Busted down the pretext
    - 8/28/98
    - 9/2/00
    - 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
    - 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
    - 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
    - 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
    - 8/2/07, 8/5/07
    - 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
    - 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
    - 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
    - 9/11/11, 9/12/11
    - 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    While Biden isn't known for being articulate, people are reading way too much into this.
  • floyd1975floyd1975 Posts: 1,350
    While Biden isn't known for being articulate, people are reading way too much into this.

    That's why he should have watched his words a little better...much like any politician needs to.
  • VictoryGinVictoryGin Posts: 1,207
    While Biden isn't known for being articulate, people are reading way too much into this.

    you'd think he know that using "articulate" in that sense is a historical code word for white condescension. but then again he's from delaware, so maybe not.
    if you wanna be a friend of mine
    cross the river to the eastside
  • Solat13 wrote:
    So I take it that Biden thinks Jesse Jackson who won 5 primaries in the 1984 election was not articulate, clean and a nice looking guy.

    I'm not sure that most people would call him "mainstream"
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • jeffbrjeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    I'm not sure that most people would call him "mainstream"

    Or articulate.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    jeffbr wrote:
    Or articulate.

    or black...oh, wait
  • Solat13Solat13 Posts: 6,996
    I'm not sure that most people would call him "mainstream"

    True, I guess when he won 11 primaries in 1988 and was considered the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination after beating Dukakis in Michigan he wasn't really "mainstream."
    - Busted down the pretext
    - 8/28/98
    - 9/2/00
    - 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
    - 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
    - 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
    - 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
    - 8/2/07, 8/5/07
    - 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
    - 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
    - 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
    - 9/11/11, 9/12/11
    - 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
  • Solat13Solat13 Posts: 6,996
    And I forgot to mention that Biden ran for president in 1988 and finished far behind Jesse Jackson so that kind of makes his statement seem even dumber.

    I'm not pro Jesse or anything. I just kind of revel in the fact when a public official puts his foot in his mouth ... lol
    - Busted down the pretext
    - 8/28/98
    - 9/2/00
    - 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
    - 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
    - 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
    - 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
    - 8/2/07, 8/5/07
    - 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
    - 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
    - 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
    - 9/11/11, 9/12/11
    - 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
  • miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
    lol@ joe biden...what a dumb racist comment. Way to kick off the campaign.
    America...the greatest Country in the world.
  • Edward W. Brooke Republican Massachusetts 1967-1979
    Carol Moseley Braun Democrat Illinois 1993-1999

    So for example, these two fine senators weren't articulate, stupid as shit, dirty as hell and fuckin ugly.

    I guess I don't get it. Fill me in about how that comment wasn't racist to those Senators and black politicians in general?

    Were you expecting anyone on this forum to find anything out of place with that comment? If Trent Lott would have said that this thread would already be 30 pages long.
    "Sarcasm: intellect on the offensive"

    "What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact."

    Camden 5-28-06
    Washington, D.C. 6-22-08
  • miller8966 wrote:
    lol@ joe biden...what a dumb racist comment. Way to kick off the campaign.


    Not a great way to announce you are running for the Presidency. I'm sure Biden isn't a racist, but that comment was just ridiculous.
  • fanch75fanch75 Posts: 3,734
    Solat13 wrote:
    So I take it that Biden thinks Jesse Jackson who won 5 primaries in the 1984 election was not articulate, clean and a nice looking guy.

    I don't think Biden is a racist, but in today's age where every little soundbite is scrutinized he's basically thrown away whatever remote hopes he had at the nomination.

    I agree. He probably botched the quote and failed to mention "Presidential contender" in his statement.

    Still, this thread kinda reminds me of the "I met the COOLEST BLACK KID EVER!!!" thread of lore. That thread was awesome.
    Do you remember Rock & Roll Radio?
  • fanch75 wrote:
    I agree. He probably botched the quote and failed to mention "Presidential contender" in his statement.

    Still, this thread kinda reminds me of the "I met the COOLEST BLACK KID EVER!!!" thread of lore. That thread was awesome.

    Yeah, he probably just misspoke.
    "Sarcasm: intellect on the offensive"

    "What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact."

    Camden 5-28-06
    Washington, D.C. 6-22-08
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