The gaffe-prone former vice president was roundly criticized on Twitter for a strange remark in which he questioned what might have happened if former President Barack Obama had been assassinated.
Initially a bit of an odd line of discussion - but context appears to provide a bit of clarity - and then add in the context of the current times that we live in and the point that seems to have been made - is thoroughly understandable. Ponder for just a moment the nightmarish level of civil unrest & disarray that could unfold if a major heinous ugly act of violence were to happen to a key leader - and the nation had to look to Mr Tiny Hands Trumpstool for stability ⌠an incoherent egotistical opportunist thoroughly in capable of showing authentic compassion or calming any situation.
What makes this something more than a run of the mill even innocuous Biden gaffe even after clarification that the country wouldâve once again been traumatized is that there were people out there who mightâve taken a shot at BHO if he had not been surrounded by what was essentially an armored limo. Thatâs in addition to the gazillion men (and women) with guns also surrounding him at all times. I canât believe BHO didnât get death threats, and I seem to remember a couple of incidents where people scaled the fence and got onto the WH grounds.
Iâm probably reading too much into Bidenâs statement, but it hits me that Biden "only had two political heroes, one hero was my dad, my two political heroes were Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.â MLK for sure. Bobby Kennedy I liked too, but he was cut down before his potential.
So Obama was not a political hero for Biden?
If Biden wanted to empathize with youth about the loss of heros, why wouldnât he name a recent persona, Obama as a âheroâ, who he worked closely with for 8+ years?
I do not subscribe to the concept of âherosâ, but maybe that is why Obama appears lukewarm about Biden. There seems to be something between these two guys. I do think Obama did more for this country than any other President in modern times, and Biden should have said so, but⌠he flubbed it.
I am stuck with why was this line of communication was incorporated in a campaign speech, anyway! It kinda of makes me wonder about his sanity and thus his ability to be POTUS.
Doesnât seem as if Uncle Biden is practicing his responses. If he did spend more time practicing, heâd probably gaffe a lot less.
no offense intended here - but I think you are over looking the time context of his comment - it is pretty clear that he was speaking about the political perspective & political heroes that he had in the era around approximately 1968 - the heroes of his youth - the people he idolized - note he goes on to say:
âMy senior semester, they were both shot and killed.
Would imagine that if you said " over the course of your entire life - what political figures do you revere & respect " - certainly other names like Obama, McCain, and others would come up
Bidenâs not my choice - - and he does have a knack for brain farts / odd comments / cringe worthy statements. But framing this as Biden displaying little regard for Obama seems like a stretch
Bidenâs intention seems so clear here, that I donât see why this is even considered a gaffe. Pretty clear some hostile reporters twisted his words.
Iâm honestly at the point where, whenever I witness anyone (commenter, journalist, person) using the term âgaffeâ with any story about Joe Biden (the term is rarely if ever used with most public officials), is to grab said person and shove the term deep down his or her throat.
IOW, Iâm sick of the sheer laziness in using this word in hopes of getting a click of sorts or for self-chest-pounding erotica.
That and âwalks backâ, âbacktracksâ, and âpushes backâ, etc. TPM can do better.
Oh, get over yourself.
Pretty ridiculous, I agree.
You donât tell me how I should express myself!
You back off and leave me the hell alone! Joe is slow and he says stupid shit that should not be said! Now you STFU!
I am sure, that for a high school senior, the assassinations in 1968 were quite traumatic.
That said, I hope he doesnât believe they were more traumatic than being a high school student in an era where there is a mass shooting of ordinary people every few days, in what have traditionally been safe spaces. 50 at a concert, 10 in a church, 8 in a synagogue, a dozen at a middle school, 20 at Wal-Mart âŚ
I think we are now in the well trodden territory of the press having a script - a ânarrativeâ - that it employs to cover Biden. We have seen this so many, many times before (and oddly, always, always, always to the detriment of Democrats).
Gore was âstiffâ and âartificialâ and âmade silly claimsâ (that he never made).
But Bush was âa guy you would like to have a beer withâ (not me, I only want people who can hold an interesting intelligent conversation).
Similar scripts brought down Dean and then Kerry.
The pro-McCain scripts practically wrote themselves after awhile.
We all know the scripts the press used to cover Hillary Clinton.
And the press scripts wrote out all of Trumpâs wall to wall lies, insanity, naked corruption and hate speech from their coverage as if it didnât exist (and continued to refuse to acknowledge the daily, nay hourly, lying until six months into his Presidency).
There is a real and solid basis for the origin of the Biden gaffe story, he after all has had two campaigns flame out before this, but this is now the framework into which the press attempts to force every Biden story.
Can we all agree that Twitter is a poor barometer of where most people stand?
I think we can.
This is not a âgaffeâ and the above post about the mediaâs recurring exaggerated or downright misleading narratives about Democratic candidates is spot-on. WTF constitutes a âgaffeâ in the age of Trump, anyway?
We have a President who spouts Fascist nonsense and accuses his political opponents of murder.
Iâm not a Biden supporter, but Biden with all of his gaffes is ten times the man currently occupying the White House.
I donât know if we should define it as a âgaffeâ, but it was a stupid mistake.
Everyone in America knows you donât speculate about or discuss assassinating Presidents. Its the kind of thing that (supposedly) draws the attention of the Secret Service and/or FBI. So inviting a discussion of what would happen if something had happened to Obama was a stupid idea â if for no other reason than it encourages discussions of a similar nature about Trump.
actually, its a pretty good barometer.
For instance Chris Cizilla is one of the âguiltyâ parties â here is what he tweetedâŚ
âImagine if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de-facto nominee. What would have happened in America?â â Joe Biden, tonight in New Hampshire
and for that effort, he got a grand total of 12 retweets, and 48 âlikesâ⌠but 152 responses overall.
and 664,000 people follow Cizilla on twitter.
In other words, almost everyone who follows Cizilla recognized that this was a non-story. And when you have three times more responses than âlikesâ for a tweet, it means you are being completely trashed.
Chris is a little over caffeinated but I get your point.