Our friend Cosmic Conservative has been making the case for a while now (here for example) that Joe Biden and his running-mate are walking, talking gaffe machines. It now appears that the Republicans agree, and are trying to have some fun with it. They’ve created the Biden Gaffe Clock.
Since I’ve always liked Joe Biden, I’m not entirely comfortable with this effort to do to the Senator what the Democrats did to Vice President Dan Quayle. I’ve always found the Senator to be a straight shooter and likeable. But that’s politics I guess.
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Since I’ve always liked Joe Biden, I’m not entirely comfortable with this effort to do to the Senator what the Democrats did to
Vice President Dan QuaylePresident Bush. Fixed that for ya.As Cosmic keeps pointing out, politics remains politics. No party wants to be the first to say "Let’s be grown-ups."
As far as whether Joe Biden deserves this treatment, I have to say there is nobody in politics I can think of who deserves it more. The man has persistent diarrhea of the mouth and if you go with the theory that people’s misstatements reveal something of their inner soul (the standard used by the media and the left every time a Republican uses the word "niggardly") then Joe Biden is a sexist, homophobic, racist, xenophobic creep, and potential pedophile.
His comments on a wide variety of topics have been insulting to Indians, Jews, Women, Blacks, Homosexuals, those with special needs, and anyone who is not a Democrat.
I keep telling you all that I am dead serious about this. Joe Biden is a walking time bomb whenever he opens his mouth, and as bad as that is, it is exacerbated significantly by the fact that Slow Joe’s mouth is ALWAYS open.
Dean, you may think the guy is a good guy, I think he’s a vicious partisan attack dog who is perhaps the person most responsible for the current round of personal destruction politics for what he allowed to occur in the Robert Bork hearings. I am pretty sure that he personally allowed the testimony of proven perjurer Anita Hill to be part of the hearing.
I don’t like Joe. He is a perfect example of what is wrong with government today. Obama could not have picked a better VP from a Republican perspective. I will tell you what, the only thing in the past two months that gave me as much optimism as the Sarah Palin pick was the Joe Biden pick.
And it’s not over yet.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
Hey man, thanks for making my name a link in the message above. ;)
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
What’s the remark that motivates the "potential pedophile" label?
Actually, I would love to see the quotes that motivated each of these labels, but the others (sexist, homophobic, racist, xenophobic) are both open to considerable interpretation and, really, fairly common in the general population so it’s not nearly as interesting.
Biden may be a good guy but he is a very serious dork. A dork to the level that even I as a McCain voter and someone who opposes Obama slaps my palm to my forehead and says "Why the heck did you say that, Joe?" every time I see the dork speak.
I agree with Dean on the Biden always seeming like a straight shooter type. I don;t like his stance on Gun Control, but all in all he’s one of the more clean senators around. Too bad he said that foolish, foolish statement.
OK the pedophile was a bridge too far, I had in my mind that he was ogling the girls at his son’s school, but when I looked it up, I remembered that it was at his son’s COLLEGE, so the girls he was congratulating for keeping his son straight (by being so hot) were presumably at least 17 years old. Perhaps not all quite LEGAL, but not really qualifing for pedophilia by most people’s estimation. Just run of the mill dirty old man creepiness I guess.
By the way, that’s also the comment that reveals his homophobia.
Indians? his comment about needing to have an Indian accent to go into 7-11.
Women? Take your pick from his recent mysogenistic attacks on Sarah Palin, I’ll just use his brood-mare references where he constantly refers to Palin’s children instead of her accomplishments.
Blacks? Well, Obama surprised him by being articulate and clean, presumably compared to PREVIOUS black candidates for the office..
Should I go on?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
jrogge, "that foolish, foolish statement?"
My god man, how many does he need to say before you realize it’s a common occurance?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
CC,
Like I said, the man is a serious dork.
Scott:
Those are quite literally just the ones I can recall off the top of my head.
Notice I didn’t even mention his being run out of the 1988 Presidential campaign after he admitted to plagiarizing his speeches.
I can see why he does, he’s a lot safer saying someone else’s words than coming up with some of his own.
The man is an embarrassment.
You know, on a related topic, I used to get real upset at how our culture kicks Republicans who say things like Joe Biden to the curb, yet Democrats can make the most outrageous statements with impunity.
Then I realized that was what allowed people like Joe Biden and Barbara Boxer and a host of others I could name to remain publicly embarrassing their party while Republicans like Trent Lott are gone and mostly forgotten.
In the end that probably helps keep Republicans competitive in a media culture that is essentially an extension of the Democrat party. So now I’m glad that Democrats circle the wagons around their intellectually challenged members.
It helps us conservatives in the long run.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
If ogling college-aged girls is dirty old man creepiness, can I have my membership card for the Dirty Old Man Club please? I was in Ann Arbor last week, and Holy Mother of God…
CosmicConservative,
Thanks. Something told me that if he were a pedophile the MSM might have mentioned it somewhere. :-)
As for the rest – I don’t know, they don’t seem any worse to me than things McCain has said or done (I’m thinking of the "bomb bomb bomb Iran" joke, the joke about Chelsea Clinton being so ugly because she’s the child of H. Clinton and Janet Reno, the "how do we beat the bitch" incident, the "I just stopped beating my wife two weeks ago" thing, etc.). I really don’t want to get into a point by point debate of who is worse, but honestly, I’m not going to base my vote for either man on a joke or a gaffe. I see both Biden and McCain as unwilling/unable to always temper their language to the squeaky clean standard that’s necessary these days, and it doesn’t really bug me about either of them. That’s not what I’m going to base my vote on.
Dean:
As an old man (though not yet nearly as old as Slow Joe was when he did his ogling) who just spent a good chunk of time taking my daughter to college and walking around the campus, let me respond this way.
It’s one thing to look. It’s another thing to stare. It’s yet another thing for a 60 year old man to publicly state how attractive he finds the teenagers around him.
Most of us have the sense not to advertise that we enjoy fantasizing about girls who might be younger than our daughters (or granddaughters).
But not Joe. He doesn’t just look. He admits to looking. Publicly. In a speech at his son’s school. A speech targeted at the very girls he finds so appealling.
I would have loved to have been sitting next to his son as the girls around him realized what his 60 year old father just said….
If you don’t see the creepiness of that… well… I don’t know what to say.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
Elizabeth,
If you don’t see the difference between an off-hand private comment revealing a personal dislike of one person by another, and a public comment revealing a personal acceptance of unpleasant stereotypes about a group…
Well just like with Dean…. I don’t know what to say.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
Dean, you just totally cracked me up;-)
I agree with Cosmic Conservative completely. I thought Joe was a pretty nice Joe, but man he has been even more awful lately. I am so glad OZ… picked him.
By the way, I nominate the "Obama-Biden Gaffe of the day" for today being their release of a national ad mocking John McCain for not using a computer or sending emails.
Of course that’s because John McCain was beaten so badly while a prisoner of war that he is physically incapable of doing so;
In fact, McCain, as a NY Times article made clear years ago, is incapable of tying his own shoes or combing his own hair.
Real classy guys that Obama-Biden team. Real classy.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
Correction, that was a Boston Globe story on McCain that described his injuries in that fashion.
Oh well, I guess that makes me a liar.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
CosmicConservative,
Which of those that I listed was an offhand private comment? "Bomb Iran" was in a VFW hall, the Chelsea joke was at a Republican fund-raiser, "how do we beat the bitch" (he didn’t make the comment but responded to it without correcting the speaker) was a public question, and the "I stopped beating my wife" comment was in an interview (I thought this last was ridiculous since it’s a common English phrase, but so is "lipstick on a pig"). So… while I don’t necessarily equate an offhand private comment to a public statement, none of those I listed was private. Unless I’m seriously confused, in which case correct me.
And honestly, if you’re looking for a candidate who has never accepted an unpleasant stereotype about a group – do let me know when they decant him/her out of the vats, OK?Â
Elizabeth:
"in a VFW hall" is quite a bit different from "In a commencement address to a student body."
"how do we beat the bitch" was not even a McCain comment and you put it in because he didn’t correct the speaker? You are kidding me right? Seriously?
"I stopped beating my wife" would only make his wife angry, so I will leave that as a domestic issue between he and his wife. Since they are still married and seem to be happy, I will assume SHE took it as a joke.
Is this is the best you can do to try to rebut my statement?
Again… seriously?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
CosmicConservative,
Uh, yeah, I think it’s a pretty definitive rebuttal to your assertion that any of what I listed was in private, if, in fact, it wasn’t.Â
"Private" in the sense I was using was as opposed to "in a public speech". Not "in their bedroom behind closed doors.”
The only one of those that you mentioned that was even in an interview was the one he directed at his wife, and if he wants to risk insulting his wife, I guess I don’t think that is very wise of him, but it CERTAINLY doesn’t compare with insulting an entire race of people.
Seriously Elizabeth, I’m not trying to be rude, but this is one of the most absurd comparisons I’ve ever seen made to try to defend something. Comparing Biden’s saying that Obama is the "first black candidate who is articulate and clean" to any of these is just plain ludicrous.
But I guess you can’t see that.
Oh well.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
Oh, I will give you the Chelsea comment, by the way. That certainly was an Obama-Biden level gaffe. And for the same reason. Chelsea is off-limits. She’s an innocent bystander. Whacking her in this manner was completely over the top.
But I never said that McCain was FREE of gaffes.
I said Obama and Biden are a virtual FONT of them.
Understand?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
So what sense of private were you using? The kind that involves being in public and speaking in front of a group of people? I’m really not getting what you mean.Â
I agree that "articulate and clean" was awful (although not as bad in context as it seems out of it), but I also think the joke about Chelsea was awful. Nothing else either of us has mentioned bothers me much (except possibly whatever remark about Palin you’re talking about, you weren’t specific, so if it’s something I haven’t heard I can’t be sure). I don’t think either candidate is great at watching his mouth, as I said. I can list other remarks that neither of has mentioned for either man, and to the extent that it’s an expression of an inappropriate sense of humor or a true gaffe where someone says something that comes out wrong, I just don’t care.Â
You are, of course, welcome to care, and to think that Biden’s a lot worse than McCain.  All I can offer is a one-woman middle-of-the-road data point; to me, someone who basically likes both sets of candidates and will vote primarily on specific issues, they just don’t sound that different. Make of it what you will.
My god man, how many does he need to say before you realize it’s a common occurance?
The other ones are just funny. The big one; the "I’m not a good pick for VP" comment, probably knocked Obama down a few points in the polls.
I’m not bringing this up to push at any of your buttons, Dean, but there’s one single simple reason why you — and everyone else as well — should utterly despise Biden.
It’s because he has arguably done more than any other single human being to ruin marriage and destroy families in this country.
Thanks to VAWA, millions upon millions of dollars of support have been handed to extremist gender bigots with virtually no oversight whatsoever, leading to the almost complete and total national institutionalization of radical femelitist chauvanism as the default standard in police domestic calls, property rights, divorce, child custody, and so on.
The negative consequences to the families, fathers, and particularly the children of this country have been incalculable. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of american lives have been severely blighted thanks to Joe Biden’s willfully ignorant chauvanist pandering.
Ack: I actually agree with you on much of that, but I’m sort of philosophical about it. That legislation didn’t get through without staunch support from Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, from both houses of Congress and the President of the United States. It’s hard for me to blame Biden for all that, even if he was one of the pushers of this well-intentioned but often destructive legislation. McCain’s spearheaded legislation I strongly oppose too (the McCain-Feingold "reform" legislation that did so much to harm the 1st amendment and make our political system more corrupt and unaccountable), but on the whole you can almost never vote for a President who doesn’t disagree with you on something that’s important to you. At least, I almost never can.Â
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