By JAKE TAPPER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2007 — Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., the loquacious chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who launched his presidential campaign today, may be experiencing an ailment not entirely unknown to him: foot in mouth disease.
Biden is taking some heat for comments he made to the New York Observer, in which he said of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a rival for the nomination: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Immediately the conservative media establishment — Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, bloggers — publicly pounced. At Townhall.com, Mary Katherine Ham wrote: "A clean black man? The first black guy on the American political scene who can both shower regularly and speak properly? Is that really what Biden thinks? If a Republican had said this, we'd have a national outpouring of grief over the residual ignorance and racial insensitivity in our country, and the guy would be in sensitivity training until around about the time John Kerry is elected president."
Obama Responds
And notably, Obama himself didn't do much to knock the story down.
Asked about the comments at a press conference this afternoon, Obama said, "you'd have to ask Senator Clinton, uh, Senator Biden what he was thinking," initially stumbling by mentioning the name of the Democratic front-runner for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. "I don't spend too much time worrying about what folks are talking about during a campaign season."
Asked if Biden meant to be complimentary, Obama said, "I'm not going to parse his words that carefully."
In a conference call with reporters about his presidential campaign, Biden acknowledged that he "was quoted accurately" in the New York Observer, but insists his comments are being misunderstood.
"Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said. "He's fresh, he's new, he's insightful."
Biden said he regretted that "some have taken totally out of context my use of the word 'clean.'"
"My mother has an expression 'clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack,'" Biden said. "Look, the idea is, this guy is something brand new no one has seen before..."
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It's a good thing I was pulling into the parking lot when I heard this or I would have had to pull over laughing. I really want to give Biden a pass on this - ok, so I really don't - come on, "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy?"
What would Denzel say? Sidney Poitier? Bryant Gumbel? Lynn Swann? Colin Powell? Rod Paige? Alphonso Jackson? JC Watts? Michael Steele? Clarence Thomas? Alan Keyes, Emmitt Smith... |
