The President Biden Thread: All Things President Joe

[joan1984]

Joe Biden's endless
gaffe-riddled apology tour
Damon Linker
March 29, 2019

I don’t hate Joe Biden. He seems like an amiable guy, a decent man. He’s been around Washington for a long time — first as a senator for 36 years and then as Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. Along the way, he’s managed to make relatively few enemies. He’s also been through a lot of personal tragedy. That makes it especially easy to think fond thoughts when his name comes up, as it often does these days, in discussions of the early presidential polls, which consistently show Biden as the early Democratic frontrunner and the candidate most likely to send President Trump packing in November 2020.

But let’s get serious: Actual Candidate Joe Biden is going to be a lot less popular than Potential Candidate Joe Biden. To begin with, there’s his record, which couldn’t be further out of step with the party he aims to lead. He’s been steadfastly pro-corporate in his instincts and preferences, as one might expect from a senator representing the state of Delaware, home to the country’s credit card industry. His racial views in the 1970s placed him on the rightward fringe of his party. He was hard on Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings. He campaigns for Republicans. And he has a long history of handsy behavior, and downright sleazy off-color statements, toward women.

Then there’s his long, notorious track record of gaffes and other verbal flubs. Endearing? Maybe. With the Republican president demonstrating flagrant ignorance and incompetence on a daily basis, perhaps an occasional harmless slip-up from the slightly doddering Democrat (Biden is 76 years old) would seem charming — a reminder of a more innocent time, when presidential misstatements were actual mistakes rather than fulminations intended to demonstrate contempt for our public institutions and antipathy for half of the country’s population.

But presidential candidate Biden won’t just face a grilling over his record and have to explain away a sloppy formulation from time to time. These two tendencies are going to combine into an endless gaffe-riddled apology tour for nearly everything Biden has ever done or said.

Don’t believe me? Behold the spectacle of the past two weeks. First, Biden gave a speech in which he appeared to announce (prematurely) that he was running for president, in the process describing himself (absurdly) as the "most progressive" candidate in the field, and immediately walked it back.

Then, desperate to head off concerns about the would-be candidate’s advanced age and less-than-adequately woke record on racial issues, his staff floated the idea of Stacey Abrams, the 45-year-old African-American former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, serving as his running mate and campaigning with the head of the ticket long before he’s clinched the nomination. Abrams has made clear she isn’t interested, in part because she may want to run for president herself. That makes the Biden operation look flat-footed and the candidate himself appear desperate to inoculate himself against the predictable charge that he’s out of step with the moral requirements of contemporary progressivism.

In case there was any doubt that it’s this concern that inspired the Abrams trial balloon, at an event in New York City on Tuesday night, Biden addressed the charge that he didn’t treat Anita Hill with sufficient respect by railing bizarrely against "English jurisprudential culture, a white man's culture," which he insisted has "got to change." He also expressed regret and remorse about how the Thomas hearings unfolded, while also skirting responsibility for it : "I wish I could have done something." Predictably, progressive activists were unmollified by this expression of powerlessness from the man who served as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee during those hearings.

What awaits us is more of this sloppy, stumbling, bumbling, unintentionally insulting effort to express contrition for Biden’s past failings. It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be boring, and it’s bound to drag down his currently high poll numbers as soon as he jumps into the race and begins attracting the kind of attention and scrutiny that presidential frontrunners always enjoy and endure.

How do we know all of this? Because Biden’s always been a one-man gaffe machine. (That’s one reason his two previous presidential bids went nowhere.) He’s older now and so even more prone to verbal slips. Combine that with the 500-mile ideological minefield that any white man with Biden’s record would have to traverse in order to placate the woke police and we’re left with a near-certain likelihood of an interminable series of mini-scandals, one after another, prompted by awkward, pesky questions about the candidate’s past and his utter incapacity to parry them with even a modicum of deftness. His campaign is bound to fall prey to a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease.

Biden will apologize. And then apologize again. And then again. Endlessly. Gracelessly. Until he finally gives up and goes home.

Could I be wrong? Might Biden hit his stride on the campaign trail and find a way to effectively dispense with the barrage of hits that are bounds to come his way from the very-online left? Sure, it’s possible. It’s just not at all likely. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and you can’t get a 70-something politician to master a set of skills he never acquired when he was half his age.

Biden is who he is: a man highly unlikely to make it through the gauntlet of the next 14 months in one piece.

https://theweek.com/articles/831852/joe-bidens-endless-gafferiddled-apology-tour

[joan1984]

An Awkward Kiss Changed
How I Saw Joe Biden
By Lucy Flores

"...For years I feared my experience would be dismissed. Biden will be Biden. Boys will be boys. I worried about the doubts, the threats, the insults, and the minimization. “It’s not that big of a deal. He touched her, so what?” The immediate passing of judgement and the questioning of motives. “Why now? Why so long after? She just wants attention.” Or: “It’s politically motivated.” I would be lying if I said I didn’t carefully consider all of this before deciding to speak. But hearing Biden’s potential candidacy for president discussed without much talk about his troubling past as it relates to women became too much to keep bottled up any longer..."

https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/an-awkward-kiss-changed-how-i-saw-joe-biden.html

[MissBarbara]

Joe Biden is by far and away the most experienced among the potential democrats candidates for president in 2020. He served in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, and he served as vice president for 8 years.

However:

* Biden has not, as of this writing, announced his candidacy.

* If he ran and won, Biden would be 78 years old at the time of his inauguration. For comparison's sake, Trump, the oldest president at the time of his inauguration, was 70 -- eight years younger than Biden.

Joe Biden would have made an excellent presidential candidate 10-20 years ago. Today, I think -- if he does decide to run -- his advanced age will prove an obstacle to many voters.

Biden's "gaffes," however, make him endearing.

[joan1984]

What would be the US Media reaction, if Mike Pence, or nearly any other elected official, did this?

Endearing?

https://twitter.com/RAMRANTS/status/930071642784514048

[psiberzerker]

What would be the US Media reaction, if Mike Pence, or nearly any other elected official, did this?

I don't know, "Grab them by the pussy?"  3 years ago, you remember that audio tape, right?  That wasn't a big deal 3 years ago, when a (Nominal) Republican causally talked about sexually assaulting women, because when you're rich, you can do whatever you want, but now.  Since it's a Democrat not yet running for the same office, all of a sudden it's got your panties in a twist?

In answer to your question, nothing.  Exactly what they did about it when it was Donald Trump we're talking about.  If that makes Joe Biden inelligible to run (Before he's even in the running) than it makes your guilded turd in chief even more illegitimate than his international money laundering, embezzling, tax evasion, campaign finance fraud, and information brokering.

(That's not even getting into the alleged sex stuff.)

Hypocrite.  Pointing out creepy uncle Joe, after ignoring creepy daddy Don for years now.  Still incapable of making an accusation without doing the exact same thing, in the same sentence, I see.

[joan1984]

  Video actions of Joe Biden, publicly touching, kissing and being boorish with children and women who do not wish such touching, kissing, do not compare to hyperbole, locker room talk, yuking it up in a private chat, years ago between then media colleagues, about how hypothetical acts would be taken in some hypothetical encounter with a 'celebrity'.

  Did the media let the Trump tape, hidden for years by NBC, and released at a key moment toward the election in an attempt to take out a Candidate running against Hillary Clinton, simply drop?

  "Good old Don..." "Endearing..."

  The voters recognized a hit piece when they saw it, and Donald J. Trump won the 2016 Election, and is President Donald J. Trump today.

  Did some Democrats, Independents, and others refuse to vote for Trump in 2016, yes, some perhaps tipped due to his remarks on what was unknown to him to be a live mike at the time.

  Any who care about personal conduct, public personal conduct in Joe Biden's case, would be wise to take pause, and not dismiss his history too quickly.

[psiberzerker]

 Video actions of Joe Biden, publicly touching, kissing and being boorish with children and women who do not wish such touching, kissing, do not compare to hyperbole, locker room talk, yuking it up in a private chat, years ago between then media colleagues, about how hypothetical acts would be taken in some hypothetical encounter with a 'celebrity'.

I've been in the Locker Room.  I've heard "Locker Room Talk," and also the confessions of serial sex offenders.  I live with a preferrential pedophile.

What's the difference, besides Democrat, and Republican?  Because one is a Sitting President, and the other an ex-vice President.  (Who's still not running.)  

One is Audio, in his own words, and the other is video of kissing a girl on top of the head?  How can you tell he's "Smelling her hair?"  I watched the video, again.  He kissed the top of her head.  

Your president confessed to doing whatever he wants, up to, and including groping women between the legs, which is Sexual Assault.  If she pressed charges, which she could, it would be Assault on a Minor.  Not sexual Assault, but she didn't.

You're right, simple assault doesn't compare to Sexual Assault.  That's the only difference I see there.  Now, you want to talk about Clinton?

[psiberzerker]

If you're not going to wait for him to run for president, at least wait for one of his alleged victims to come forward.  Then, you can accept the allegations, just like you didn't accept the allegations when it was Justice Kavanaugh.

Do you believe in due process, or not?  Because I'm getting mixed signles here.  You're willing to take the word of a confessed underage binge drinker over a Professor before, but now you're willing to Impeach a president that hasn't even started running yet, without a single accusation.

So, which is it?  Innocent until proven guilty, (Even with a legal Confession) or guilty before a single charge is even reported?  Just going by your track record, it sounds like it's only sexual assault if he's a Republican.  

Now, you want to talk about Clinton?  Or would you rather drop the charges?  I'm even willing to entertain the assumption that he doesn't want to run, because he's afraid of women, and little girls coming forward to testify against him.

Why didn't you think of that?  Is it because you're not used to being on the Victim's side when there's sexual allegations?  Because this is the first time I've seen it from you.

[Athos_131]

Those who support child rapists really don't have a moral high ground to stand on.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Those who support child rapists really don't have a moral high ground to stand on.

#Resist

Agreed.  Especially pointing out an alleged double standard, while supporting the Moral Majority, and Family Values party, but forget to mention the president that talks about the "Fine people" in the American Nazi Party, and the Klan.

If you take a moral stand for Victims, then you do for ALL victims.  Not just against the alleged sexual offenses of the other party.  Check under your rug before you try to dig up dirt from the other side.  That way, you know where you're standing.

[joan1984]

  So, so, sensitive... Joe Biden can handle himself, I am sure... Nominate him...

Maybe a Biden/Obama ticket, with Michelle Obama.. that could actually work.

[Athos_131]

  So, so, sensitive...

You're correct, I am sensitive to victims rights.

If that upsets your hypocritical racist shit posting ass, my day is made.

#Resist

[joan1984]

Video breaking board rules removed - IB.

https://uproxx.com/viral/this-little-girl-shut-down-joe-biden-when-he-whispered-in-her-ear-then-tried-to-kiss-her/

"...From the outset, this poor senator’s daughter looks like she’s trapped in a corner with the touchy-feely hands of Joe Biden edging towards her. Where can she go? In one corner, her parents — smiling and nodding approvingly as the vice president nudges further ever so slightly. He wants to steal my youth!

"In the other corner, the perpetrator himself — VP Biden, with his grabby-mitts waving and dangling and threatening to snatch the life essence from her blossoming existence as his gums recede to reveal a set of sharpened fangs dripping with centuries-old saliva. He’s Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China. He’s one of the cat people from Sleepwalkers.

"Then, it happens. Biden whispers a few magical phrases into the little girl’s ear, phrases that the VP has used for eons to paralyze his prey rendering them unable to withstand the soul-snatching kiss taught to him by the Great-Wizard-From-The-Hill-That-Never-Was.

"She’s frozen, and Biden has her. It’s all academic at this point. He leans in to press his charred lips against the smooth porcelain skin of this young being, already feeling the rush of youthful exuberance he’s felt countless times before. The little girl stares off into space, hoping the process comes quick and painlessly. Then something happens. She hears a voice. FIGHT!

"She doesn’t know where it came from, but the echo in her head motivates her to move her legs, then her torso, then finally — with the strength returning to her head — she strafes inches to the right and hears the slight smack of Biden’s lips kissing the air next to her forehead. He missed.

"Biden stands upright, defeated. He’s lost this battle. But how? “You’re a good girl,” he snarls.

"The little girl knows the war she waged will be lost among the smattering of conversations and handshakes on the floor. But, the sense of victory is overwhelming. Still, where did that voice come from, the battlecry that engaged her strength to fight back against the Biden beast?

"Across the floor, in the corner, a man in a black trench coat and navy blue hat stands idly; he’s not shaking hands nor is he speaking to anyone. The figure uses his index finger to raise the brim of his hat, revealing his face: President Obama. He simply nods his head towards her and smiles..."

[psiberzerker]

Nominate him...

You don;t have any dirt on the 20+ Democrats that ARE running?  Might want to worry about beating them, instead of the low hanging fruit.  If you can think that high.

What do you have on Beto?

[psiberzerker]

https://uproxx.com/viral/this-little-girl-shut-down-joe-biden-when-he-whispered-in-her-ear-then-tried-to-kiss-her/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2906359/Senator-father-13-year-old-girl-says-Joe-Biden-not-creepy-awkward-swearing-photo.html

Next?

[Athos_131]

http://www.kristensboard.com/forums/index.php?topic=63795.msg513070#msg513070

The OP seems confused.

Although this was the same person who endorsed Joe Arpaio for Senate.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Although this was the same person who endorsed Joe Arpaio for Senate.

   No shit?  That's insane!  You have that thread too, so I can read it?  Must have been before my time.

The same guy that didn't understand why his rinky dink County jurisdiction didn't make him Privileged to Medical Documents (Like Birth Records) and so confused about borders, he could be bothered to look up when Hawaii became a State.

 

[joan1984]

  I am not making any personal accusations, have no 'dog' in the fight for which Democrat will lose to Donald Trump in 2020.

  Washington, DC will vote for any name, or even a blank, for Democrat, and she or he will get, guaranteed, alive or dead, at least 3 Electoral Votes, no matter any other reality.

  Whether you wither the ranks down to Biden, or Warren, or Francis J. O'Roark or whatever other name he wants on the ballot, or is allowed to be called on TV by that time, or any of the more crackpot leftwing folks, or even Bernie, or even Hillary, matters not to me personally, and you must know that each and every one of them will be fully vetted during the Election cycle, based upon their own history or lack of history.

  Matters not what I or any other Trump supporter thinks or believes about any one of them, not one wit. You will do this to and among yourselves, I am sure.

  Personal attacks may have worked, back when the majority of us were being civil, to deflect and prevent public knowledge about Candidates...and that is no longer the case. You will not deter with personal attacks, any viable 'news' about any one of your supposed 'qualified' Candidates... there will not matter to whom CNN gives the debate questions in advance, and no honor among thieves is presumed, in todays politics, and expected.

  My suggestion is you should be prepared for what will come, and presume all will become known about each and every one of them, prior to selection in your Primary, and certainly before November 2020, when Americans, and those who Democrats connive to get ballot access, go to the Polls.

  Please choose carefully, for the Nation's sake. Thank you, all of you, even those among you who deserve no gratitude or consideration at all.

[Athos_131]

 I am not making any personal accusations, have no 'dog' in the fight for which Democrat will lose to Donald Trump in 2020.

Ron Howard Voice:

The OP had made several posts in regards to which Democratic candidate they endorsed.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

 I am not making any personal accusations, have no 'dog' in the fight for which Democrat will lose to Donald Trump in 2020.

Then why this fascination with the alleged sexual proclivities of Biden, is it to mask the sexual proclivites of the president?  For someone who doesn't claim to care, you certainly seem to care enough to assassinate the character of PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT EVEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!

You might want to focus on the people who ARE running, for President, and Senate, in 2020.  Since you're distracted by Hillary, and Biden.  You might want to care about protecting the hegemony that is protecting your sex offender (Allegedly) in chief.  You already lost the House, so without the Senate to protect him, and the power to nominate the Attorney General/Secretary of Presidential coverups, he's going to prison.

Don't you get that?  Never mind, keep focusing on the last Presidential election, ignoring the last Congressional election, and assuming it's going to go exactly the way you predict.

My suggestion is you should be prepared for what will come.

Still incapable of coming up with an argument, without doing the exact same thing, in the same post, I see?  You're getting better, you're not doing it in the same paragraph as you did last time.  I'm proud of you.