Discussion for article #227784
This guy has put his foot in his mouth so many times it’s a wonder it doesn’t look like a shoebox.
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Let’s see the media make a big deal the next time some Teabagger in Congress insults the Muslim community (like the Oklahoma state senator who recently said American Muslims need to be “cut out like a cancer”). Yeah, like that will ever occur. They are very selective in their reporting of anti-Semitic remarks. And yes, you fucking Teabagger morons who happen to be trolling this site, Arabs and others in the Middle East are also a Semitic people.
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More media hysteria…Don’t speakers speak with the assurance that most listeners listen through an understanding of the speaker’s life gestalt? Isn’t it just possible, considering Biden’s life and works that the Vice President was merely highlighting unscrupulous moneylenders without the ancient ethnic/religious prejudice to those few aware of the Shakespeare reference?
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TPM leaves out the most important part of the story:
“Abe Foxman has been a friend and advisor of mine for a long time. He’s correct, it was a poor choice of words, particularly as he said coming from ‘someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden.’ He’s right,” said Biden in a statement provided by his office Wednesday.
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"When someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden, uses the term 'Shylocked’ to describe unscrupulous moneylenders dealing with service men and women, we see once again how deeply embedded this stereotype about Jews is in society,”
Translation: Stand back while I reach to earn my paycheck.
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Sorry Joe, that’s a no-no.
I know better, and have cleaned up my language from similar terms like “shyster” that I heard used all the time when I was a kid.
Another example of Joe’s “lovable” foot-in-mouth antics. I don’t believe he would have used the term if he gave it a minute’s thought, but that’s our Joe.
Not really A Big F**king Deal though, although I assume he’ll apologize for the slip of his lip.
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Can Joe say our deployed GIs have been gypped ?
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I’ll take a Biden gaff over a Bush-ism any day of the week.
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He already has. Which TPM could easily have reported had they chosen to since that was the subject of the news item given as a source in the TPM article.
It looks like Brendan James is angling for a gig at Drudge or the Weakly Standard.
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That’s just Biden. He famously doesn’t weigh and filter every word before he opens his mouth, but he didn’t mean anything bad. The ADL had to respond but they know that’s just Biden too and they pretty much said so. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
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Welshing? Gyped?
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A.P.O.L.O.G.Y. = that is how it is done. No ‘If I offended someone…’ bullshit.
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Does literally anyone think that Biden was referring to Jews?
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But some Bushisms have enriched the language.
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That is why it was the most important part of the story and ?? why TPM left it out. Classy and surprising move coming out of the mouth of a politician.
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Somebody gave me a Bushism-A-Day desk calendar a few years back, and some of the malapropisms and examples grammar butchery were highly entertaining…until you realize that it’s the President of the United States who’s uttering those boners. Then it becomes a bit sad.
Agreed. We need to be able to freely make allusions to literary characters without being take to imply all of their attributes. If I say “Mr. X is a real Santa Claus” I probably don’t mean that Mr. X is fat and wears a red suit. More likely I’m talking about how he passes around gifts. It’s no cause for either fat people or women in red to complain.
Anyone who complains doesn’t understand how literary references work. That the press would amplify such complaints shows how uneducated our press is.
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I use the word “shyster” and I’m a Jew. Its not indicative of a Jewish person. It has the same meaning in Yiddish as it does in German. Its an unscrupulous person, especially in business matters. Unless you use it in regards specifically and only to Jewish lawyers or businesspeople…I would say, then, I can see why you would think twice…as it would look intentionally derogatory.
Shylock is a different matter. He was a character of stereotypical Jewishness at the time Shakespeare wrote his play. Its parlance today extrapolated to all Jews is a slur.
I’m Jewish, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. People don’t always understand the original of words. I’m sure he’s been informed and learned his lesson.
I for one, used to use the term ‘gyp’ (short for gypsy, meaning to cheat) until I learned better. A friend of mine from Maine told me that growing up they would use the term ‘jew’ in much the same way. They did think much about it either – jews were as foreign to them as gypsies were to me.
Educate, accept apologies (I’m sure Biden’s is coming), and move on.
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