No, Biden’s not like Franken
So now it’s been decreed by someone or other on the left that it’s time for the person who’s already been known for years on the right as “Creepy Uncle Joe” Biden to be accused of inappropriate touching:
Amy Lappos, 43, who was a congressional aide to Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., at the time of the alleged incident, told the Washington Examiner that Biden, 76, should not run for president in 2020 and should support a female candidate instead.
She described how he put his hand around her neck and pulled her toward him to rub noses. She said she thought he was going to kiss her on the mouth. “This is the Al Franken thing all over again,” she said.
Well, no. No it’s not. Franken was 100% expendable at the time; everyone knew he’d be replaced by a Democrat and thus the Party wouldn’t suffer. There were only pluses for Democrats in throwing him under that crowded bus. They’d get #MeToo points to use against the Republicans, and they’d lose nothing by it. Al who? Never heard of him.
Biden is different. He’s not in office but he’s running for the highest office in the land. Not only that, but he’s one of the frontrunners. His touchy-feely stuff occurred while he was in office, much of it in full view of the world, and yet only the right was mentioning it during the eight years he was VP. Fancy that.
Biden was protected then as Obama’s veep. Now he’s fair game, at least for the moment, at least a little bit. Why? Because someone among the Democrats must want him out of the race. I suspect some other candidate or candidates. Note in that quote I gave, Lappos says that Biden “should support a female candidate instead.” I don’t know which one is behind this (or ones are behind this), but it is not some sort of coincidence that much is being made of this now.
Nothing has changed about Biden. Nothing. The Democratic establishment—Nancy Pelosi and the like in Congress—is more or less defending him (albeit a bit weakly), so we can guess that they see him as a very viable candidate for their side and don’t want to lose him:
…Democrats took a similarly neutral position on Biden, a beloved figure in the Democratic Party who also served in the Senate for 35 years. They view his behavior as questionable but not something that rises to the level of sexual harassment.
“I think he’s got to just really be thoughtful about the change in culture,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “This is clearly not a sexual harassment allegation but it is a question of just making sure people understand the boundaries of how you interact with people.”…
On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the accusations don’t disqualify him as a candidate for president, but on Tuesday in a Politico interview she suggested he hasn’t responded appropriately.
“To say ‘I’m sorry that you were offended’ is not an apology. ‘I’m sorry I invaded your space,’ but not ‘I’m sorry you were offended’ because what is that? That’s not accepting the fact that people think differently about communication,” Pelosi told Politico during a live event.
Biden, in a statement Sunday, said he never meant to offend the women.
But it’s not as though this “change in culture” is something that just happened yesterday. And it’s really not a change, actually. I’m pretty old, and it was never especially acceptable for some strange guy—even someone in political office—to do what Biden has done. It was always creepy, even when I was a girl. Among all Biden’s other failings (for example this and this), he is at the very least completely tone deaf to the usual standards of behavior between men and women. If it hadn’t become one of my least favorite words on earth, I’d even call his attitude “privileged.”
And yet the 76-year-old Biden (he is slated to turn 78 just a couple of weeks after the 2020 election) is one of the Democratic frontrunners. Go figure.
And someone’s not very happy about it.
Right, Neo. It’s never been okay for strangers to invade personal space the way Biden does. At least, unlike Franken, the invasions were not overtly sexual, except that Biden doesn’t seem to treat males that way.
What he lacks for brains he makes up in, um, cuddly friskiness.
Well, you can’t have everything. (And one really should go with one’s strengths.)
Still, if it’s good enough for Nancy Pelosi, well then it should be good enough for us.
Remember: Kavanaugh, at 17 or 18, whatever, should have known better NOT to engage in whatever fictional behavior he didn’t engage in. But Biden—76 (and he doesn’t look a day older than 74!!)—Biden’s simply a marvel of engaging human libido. Still going strong! What a charmer! What a loveable, huggable bounder!!
(Oh, and also NOT a Republican.)
The guy has always struck me as a smarmy, hack politician, and the “handsy” ** stuff and his bazillion gaffs just added to his creepiness and obvious insincerity; he’s the model of all that is wrong with politicians.
** “Handsy,” a way of trying to make light of and excusing–“that’s just Joe being Joe”–what is actually very offensive and unacceptable behavior.
The only reason Biden has been able to get away with this crap all these years is the high positions he’s held.
Biden is not the intersectional candidate that the new democrat party and the MSM desire.
Unfortunately, he leads in the democrat poles.
How does one solve the problem — suddenly condemn activity that was condoned by the MSM and democrat party for decades.
Go away, old white male, go away or we will dig out other problems you have. Consider the reopening of the case of Ukraine. Do you want more? Hmmmm? Take a hint before we get really nasty. Just look at what we attempted to do to Trump and his entire family.
Edward,
Powerline has a piece up on Biden in Ukraine. His son was a beneficiery.
Biden is expendable too and someone(s) got to Pelosi and impressed upon her that they’re not happy with Biden as a potential nominee. I suspect that’s why she went from defending him to reprimanding him.
Biden has too much baggage; age, stupidity and a bonifide “me-too nominee”.
Democratic Party slogan for the 2020 presidential campaign:
Biden and AOC! Reach out and touch somebody!!
Biden and AOC! Reach out, touch everybody!!
ad nauseum….
Edward on April 2, 2019 at 2:25 pm at 2:25 pm said:
Biden is not the intersectional candidate that the new democrat party and the MSM desire.
Unfortunately, he leads in the democrat poles.
* * *
Or, fortunately.
I would be quite happy to have Biden vs Trump in 2020.
When the Dems took over after Nixon resigned, Biden organized the successful effort to end US military aid to South Vietnam. They had been successfully defending themselves but couldn’t continue and their defenses collapsed once the aid ended. The North invaded and one million people tried to escape the communists by sea. It was a humanitarian disaster that the Dems have never owned up to. The only anti-war protestor with any integrity who apologized was Joan Baez.
I agree with Paul in Boston that there are lots of reasons, based on Biden’s tenure in the Senate, to oppose a Biden presidency. His somewhat creepy hands-on approach to women is by no means a major reason to oppose him.
Paul,
Don’t forget that the democrat representative Chris Dodd addressed the congress and said that the Cambodians would be better off under Pol Pot. Dodd demonstrated that he is a fool, but the voters of Connecticut kept electing him to congress.
I’ve never liked Joe Biden, in the same way I’ve never understood liked John Kerry, he is 100% self-serving and aggrandizing. Biden is the sort of fake poseur that I despise in public and private life. He’s a super tough and smart guy which, if you forget, you can just ask him to remind you. On top of that he’s a grin-f*cker, supportive to your face and then stabs you in the back. The only reason I’d like the Democrats to nominate him is to see DJT kick his butt in the 2020 election.
As for these recent attacks, I’m not saying it’s the Clintons… but it’s the Clintons.
steve walsh, why would the Clintons be knifing Joe Biden at this point? Are they still pulling the strings, and for which candidate? I suppose it’s possible Hillary still thinks she could get the nomination if Biden were out.
Hi Kate,
I think Hillary still believes she is the rightful and deserving candidate for the Democrats, and I think only the Clintons are capable of such nefarious and slimy attacks on a competitive candidate (Biden leads, consistently, in the polls). She imagines that she clears the field of the leader, opening the path to the nomination. Of course, I do think Creepy Uncle Joe has earned all the bad things being said and alleged.
Drip, drip, drip…
two more women have come forth to pile on he who is not the desired by the MSM and democrats
It will be interesting to see how much pressure he takes before realizing that he is not the chosen one
Steve, it does sound Clintonesque.
Just had to share this, although, no doubt, many others here were already aware of it.
Do a Bing, DuckDuckGo, or even a Google search for “creepy” and all three search engines return an auto compete of “creepy joe” “creepy uncle joe” or “creepy joe biden.”
I find it hilarious that even Google cannot avoid the obvious!
Some years ago read an arch comparison of New York and Los Angeles, by how they tried to win you over. LA whispers “f**k me” while NY shouts f**k you.”
Biden just wants to be loved; Franken wants to force you.
In the party that’s unleashed the Kraken, they both deserve to take Andromeda’s place.
Who likes Biden other than regular folks who prefer an old-style, non-threatening Democrat and therefore push him up in the polls?
To the Democratic base Biden is an old white guy who doesn’t really get it and is in the way. To the Democratic leaders and candidates Biden is an old white guy who doesn’t really get it and is in the way.
Biden might have had a chance if he had had the balls to run in 2016, but that ship sailed and now he’s four years older and even less appealing.
I’ve read it argued Biden is the guy who could compete with Trump for the white working-class vote and win in 2020 — minus the handsy stuff I guess. I don’t believe that. Trump would chew him up and spit him out like Jeb!
However, Biden is definitely toast now that the Long Knives have come out.
Tammy Bruce gave a good rule of thumb on personal contact on Tucker’s show tonight; don’t do anything to a woman you wouldn’t do to a man.
For example, if you came up behind a man and embraced him from behind, you would likely get an elbow in the gut, or a fist in the face, so, don’t do it to a woman.
If you came up behind a man and started to get so close you were smelling his hair you would, again, likely get an elbow in the gut, or a fist in the face, and/or people might get the wrong impression, so, don’t do it to a woman.
Given all of the examples of ol’ Joe’s “handsyness” we have all likely seen photos or videos of, my guess is that there are innumerable other examples out there, and I don’t think that, were these examples to come raining in on him from all sides, like mortar rounds, that Biden could survive politically.
It just depends on how badly whoever is behind this campaign–and there is definitely someone behind this campaign–wants ol’ Joe to disappear from the political scene.
It’s almost like 2016 in negative image…
Then you had Jeb! & Marco & ad nauseam…and Trump
the ad nauseam went after Trump & failed
Now you have Biden…and the clown car full…
someone in the clown car (or the person buying the gas) has the laser dot on Handsy Biden…I’m betting their aim is better on the D side.
I suspect Joe will go more quietly than the 2016 loser.
Tammy Bruce gave a good rule of thumb on personal contact on Tucker’s show tonight; don’t do anything to a woman you wouldn’t do to a man.
I think a conversation as raunchy as the one between Billy Bush and Donald Trump in 2005 is one they’d have avoided in mixed company. Don’t think Bruce’s rule quite cuts it.
When the Dems took over after Nixon resigned, Biden organized the successful effort to end US military aid to South Vietnam. They had been successfully defending themselves but couldn’t continue and their defenses collapsed once the aid ended. The North invaded and one million people tried to escape the communists by sea. It was a humanitarian disaster that the Dems have never owned up to. The only anti-war protestor with any integrity who apologized was Joan Baez.
1. Nixon was succeeded as President by a Republican. The Democrats had control of Congress, but that was not a novelty; they’d held Congress since 1955.
2. Biden had been in Congress less than two years at the time Congress voted to cut off aid to the South VietNam government. He’s never been a political militant and it’s doubtful he was of particular significance in that legislative battle.
3. The humanitarian crisis you’re referring to erupted in 1978, not 1974 (there was the airlift organized in 1974-75 of a select set of VietNamese who were deemed to be in grave danger in the event of a Communist victory; the Ford Administration estimated 174,000 should be airlifted out. Cannot recall how many were). Joan Baez organized a petition campaign in 1979 in regard to the boat people. There were quite a number of signatories. Jane Fonda and Wm. Kuntsler objected. A more obscure petition campaign had been organized by Richard John Neuhaus in 1975. Neuhaus later reported that about half of those he asked to sign had agreed to do so and half begged off. It was an ineffectual gesture on the part of Baez and Neuhaus, but it did serve to differentiate the doves and the snakes among the anti-war movement.
So who does emerge from the Democrat field after Creepy Uncle Joe departs?
My bet is still Kamala Harris unless she’s more of a rookie than I think. She’s young, half-black and attractive plus more than a bit ruthless. She’s not as smooth and charismatic as Obama but close enough. And she is the candidate whom Obama would mostly likely prefer to back.
I do believe Obama is the behind-the-scenes puppet master for much of what we are reading in the news these days including the Trump attacks.
There’s this photograph of Obama showing contempt for Biden:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/90962/
That one really stuck in my mind. Of course, photos are tricky. Perhaps it was late and Obama had had a drink or two and wanted to go home. Who knows?
Nonetheless, I can’t imagine Obama ever had much respect for an old white political hack like Biden.
However, there is a fringe idea for a Biden-Michelle Obama ticket which keeps surfacing with the promise Biden will step down after one term. It’s crazy enough to happen in these crazy days.
Then again, while dismissing Kamala Harris, Rush Limbaugh has touted a Michelle Obama run, “… if the right shoes drop and the right things happen, I think Michelle will be in there…”
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2019/01/28/kamala-harris-has-nowhere-to-go/
Regarding this:
“Tammy Bruce gave a good rule of thumb on personal contact on Tucker’s show tonight; don’t do anything to a woman you wouldn’t do to a man.
I think a conversation as raunchy as the one between Billy Bush and Donald Trump in 2005 is one they’d have avoided in mixed company. Don’t think Bruce’s rule quite cuts it.”
The way you would apply the rule to that situation is: don’t talk about women that way, since you wouldn’t talk about men that way.
It strikes me that Biden’s behavior in public, as shown in all those photos, is quite similar to what Trump said in that conversation. In both cases they are showing, or saying, they can do whatever they want. In both cases, it’s a show of power.
The big difference is that Trump seems amazed and delighted at having achieved so much power that he can grab a starlet by the pussy. People like Biden (and Bill Clinton… it’s a very long list…) seem to assume that sort of thing is their due. I think the real reason people got so upset about the Trump tape is that he said something out loud that people are expected to pretend isn’t the case. But we all know it is.
We are all so tired of pretense that even this kind of truth-telling is a bit refreshing. That’s one of the things the anti-Trump elites have trouble understanding. (I’m not pro Trump, but I am VERY anti-pretense.)
The Dems do NOT want Hunter Biden, son of Joe, in the news. He was on the board of directors of a Ukrainian Gas company, being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor. VP Biden bragged about getting the prosecutor fired, using the threat of a US loan guarantee of $1 bln.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-scrutiny-demanding-ouster-ukraine-official.amp
The excessive snuggling by creepy uncle Joe is another reason, but one easier to talk about, since it’s not quite harassment. In fact, many women DO like a famous, powerful guy like Joe to take more liberties with them.
Kate made a good point about Trump’s private Billy Bush tape — they’d have avoided making such a tape in mixed company.
But she’s wrong about “you wouldn’t talk about men that way.” Gay men, talking to gay men, and attracted to gay men, definitely talk about grabbing other gay men by their crotch. Two guys talking about sexual power/ attraction from their desired sex targets. Where sex & power are more important than “relationship”.
She’s very right that the talk is about showing power, bragging about it. I haven’t yet heard credible allegations that Trump actually DID do that level of grabbing, tho I can believe he tried it a few times. If it’s part of a consensual sex act, that’s not at all the same — it then becomes part of foreplay.
And that’s the thing about creepy Joe, he’s doing things to strange women that are really only appropriate for seduction. I wouldn’t be surprised if most successful womanizers do similar things, more privately, with the purpose of seduction. It doesn’t seem that Joe is as much a womanizer as Bill Clinton, or Trump, or JFK, and it’s so public, so it’s more creepy.
Tom Grey, it was Sarah Rolph, just above your comment, but I agree that the Billy Bush tape was a guys-only talk which they would not have done if there’d been a woman in the vehicle. Whether it was just empty bragging is another question. What has NOT emerged is a string of women claiming Trump did grab them without consent. We also don’t have a string of women claiming Biden did more than this creepy touching and nuzzling.
If Creepy Joe put his hands on me from behind, I would tell him to remove them. If he didn’t, I would put an elbow in his solar plexus.
“Consider the reopening of the case of Ukraine.”
Heh, you mean like giving Biden the Manafort treatment?
As though Biden were a Republican?….
Gosh, sounds more like Ruthenian stand up…. (Though, if he does insist on ruffling the wrong feathers, I suppose he might just become the equivalent….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3JsuWz4xWc )
Meanwhile, let’s hope those GRRREAT! ideas keep a’comin’!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-02/breathtakingly-terrible-idea-top-democrat-proposes-taxing-unrealized-capital-gains
Kate: Agree with what I think you say above about the difference between Trump’s colloquy with Billy Bush and Joe Biden’s handsiness. The former was private locker-room male BS. Trump used “you” in the offensive declaration of “you can grab them” etc. Not “I have grabbed them” etc. That’s perhaps a slight difference but it adds strength to the basic argument that he was just doing BS. Unless and until an actual woman (or women) came forward to say “he did that to me,” we are left with just BS.
In contrast, we have copious and well-known records, video and still, of Joe Biden taking liberties with many specific women. Who are helpless: spouses of Joe’s subordinates or merely people caught in a ceremony or other moment where it would be extremely awkward, if not career-ending, to do what is called for, namely deliver him a kick in the goolies or at least a slap across the kisser.
I think Trump wins this round. Not that that says much, but still.
Rush Limbaugh has touted a Michelle Obama run, “… if the right shoes drop and the right things happen, I think Michelle will be in there…”
See Steve Sailer’s assessment of MO. There is very little indication that the woman has ever been career-oriented.
1. She quit practicing law in 1991. It’s a puzzle as to what she did all day in the various apparatchiki jobs she had over the period running from 1991 to 2008 (n.b., the last position was eliminated when she vacated it), and it’s a reasonable inference that trading on and developing political connections explained nearly all of it.
2. Some of the biographical literature on the Obamas (I know, rock salt) suggests that she was chronically irritated with her husband ca. 2000 and wanted him to get out of politics. He was on the short-list for the position of executive director of the Joyce Foundation that year, a position which would have paid quite well; he flubbed the interview. Sailer’s opinion is that these accounts are accurate and she was not pleased with her position as primary breadwinner. She wanted him to do more earning so she could do more mothering.
3. MO’s plan after the election in 2008 was to stay in Chicago for six months (with the girls and her mother) until the school year concluded. She was talked out of it on the basis of optics and her husband’s preferences.
4. She’s never shown much overt interest in public policy. If you were to rank-order the last 14 1st ladies in terms of their engagement with policy, the top four would be Eleanor Roosevelt, HRC, Rosalynn Carter, and Nancy Reagan, in that order. Mrs. Johnson had only niche interests (beautification), but she’d worked in her husband’s office and was to some extent his accomplice. Mrs. Ford was more opinionated but less implicated. MO was a conventional First Lady.
Indeed, the way the Democratic Party has been going, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the wise (read “desperate”) party leaders conclude that “smart” political strategy means going the “Eva Peron” route.
(Proving that it takes only one party to—Whiskey—Tango?)
Buenos Aires on the Potomac?
Don’t cry for me, DC?
Well, maybe tears of laughter due to the absurd and sordid “decision” making….
(At least the music should be decent….)
There is very little indication that [Michelle Obama] has ever been career-oriented. –Art Deco
However, there are plenty of indications she is a serious advocate of Obama-style politics. She could be a proxy president, while Obama and cronies ran the show behind the scenes. I doubt it would bother Democrat voters as long as she won in 2020.
It’s been done. See Governor Lurleen Wallace, wife of George Wallace. It was clear she ran only because her husband could not due to term limits. How much she might have governed by her own lights is unknown because she came into office essentially with terminal cancer and died a year and a half year later.
However, there are plenty of indications she is a serious advocate of Obama-style politics. She could be a proxy president, while Obama and cronies ran the show behind the scenes.
Recall the comment of a contemporary at Harvard Law School. His assessment of BO as the Law Review ‘president’ was that he was more interested in being the president of the Review than doing anything with the job. Personally, the man’s always struck me as Spam-in-a-can. Obama is a manifestation of the vectors you find in the Democratic Party, and adds little or nothing of his own. He has what he came for as we speak.
And the country would have to countenance the scam.
Obama was never particularly admired. In 2008, with a financial crisis coming to a head during the campaign, with the media acting as an extension of his press office, and with a spent Republican candidate addled enough to put a skeezy pair like Nicolle Wallace and Steven Schmidt in charge of his campaign, he didn’t do much better than George Bush the Elder had in 1988. In 2012, with extensive assistance from the media, he pulled out a win with the oddest of features: he was returned to office with a smaller plurality than the one he had originally, something which has happened just one other time since 1824. He was consistently underwater in job approval ratings from the spring of 2010 to the spring of 2016.
“What has NOT emerged is a string of women claiming Trump did grab them without consent.” That’s a good point, Kate.
Notice that while Joe’s behavior was public and well-known, no one in the Democratic Party seems to have taken him aside and said, “Joe, knock that off!”
Recall the comment of a contemporary at Harvard Law School. His assessment of BO as the Law Review ‘president’ was that he was more interested in being the president of the Review than doing anything with the job
That’s a rather narrow view of Obama. True, he was not a hands-on guy. He didn’t work that hard by all accounts. I was stunned by Michelle’s remark that Obama got home by 6 pm.
However, Obama did plenty with his presidency by setting directions and delegating: Obamacare, the huge expansion of the debt, the desertion of Iraq, the terrible Iran deal, the Title IX “Dear Colleague” malarkey, gay marriage, etc. etc. during his administration, that many conservatives considered nearly the end of the Republic. Obama came damn close to “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
Seems to me Obama did quite a lot “with the job” and he did so intentionally. I don’t think any other Democrat would have done as much as President.
You humans are…
…not like Franken?