The Case For Biden

You keep saying "career."
And what career is that, exactly?

maporsche wrote:

One might also go so far as to say that they care very much about #metoo but don't think what Biden has done rises to the level of a #metoo moment.

Bingo.
People seem to think they can just weaponize #metoo to ruin people's careers.... That's not how it works.

People seem to think they can just weaponize #metoo to ruin people's careers.... That's not how it works.

One of the great political themes of the Democratic presidential campaign is how much everybody loves Joe Biden.

Really. Just Google “I love Joe Biden.” Go past the T-shirts and memorial coffee cups and you’ll see a ton of stuff.

“I love Joe Biden. He’s a great guy and a great politician,” said Jerry Shriner, a Democratic National Committee member from Idaho, when the question of a Biden return came up. “I wish he were the president right now. But I’m not sure I wish he is president in 2021.”

“I love Joe Biden. I really do,” said Tom Courtney, a Democratic leader in Iowa. “But there comes a moment when it’s time to not run.”

In the past, whenever Biden has tried to run for president, things didn’t go well. In part it’s been because of his tendency to sound … goofy. In 2007, he described one of his opponents, Barack Obama, as the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

He didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but he still finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses. He dropped out and became vice president. When asked about Biden as a possible successor, Obama just said, “I love Joe Biden.”

Now, Biden seems ready to give it one more shot. He hasn’t announced yet, but he’s ahead in the polls. And thrashing around in the controversy over his longstanding habit of affectionately putting his hands all over women he meets.

“Social norms are changing,” said the former vice president via Twitter. It was not quite an apology. More like: “O.K., O.K. I’ll do it another way.”

Well, remember that old movie line about how love means never having to say you’re sorry?

On Wednesday, Biden sent out a video promising the world he’d be “more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space.” It was a pretty good presentation. He managed to look fairly normal, all things considered. When you’ve spent a week being savaged for old-uncle-creepiness, it’s easy to get a little self-conscious.

“I worked my whole life to empower women,” he told the camera “ … so the idea that I can’t adjust to the fact that personal space is important, more important than it’s ever been, is just not thinkable. I will. I will.”

Two problems here. One is that Biden is acting as though the whole don’t-touch business is a brand-new product of the #MeToo movement. That a person in his position could have accidentally missed the message until recently.

Let’s go back to 2006. At a G-8 summit in Russia, President George W. Bush came up behind German leader Angela Merkel and inflicted a quick back rub. Merkel appeared … grossed out. The picture went around the world. Comedians had a field day. Hard to believe a powerful U.S. senator with an expertise in foreign affairs could have missed the story.

A few months earlier, New Mexico Lt. Gov. Diane Denish had told a reporter she tried to avoid being around the governor, Bill Richardson, because “He pokes me. He pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg.” Like Biden, Richardson was a Democratic presidential hopeful.

People were talking about it a lot. “Have our leaders gone mad?” demanded a Times writer, who traced the new touchy-feely trend to political consultants like Republican Frank Luntz, who were trying to create more human interaction between their clients and the public.

Luntz was indeed encouraging his clients to go beyond the traditional handshake when it came to making contact. These days, he’s still consulting but he’s pretty clear that times have changed. “What used to be seen as a demonstration of endearment is now seen as invasion of space,” he said in a phone interview. Nevertheless, he loves Joe Biden. (“One of the warmest people I’ve ever met.”)

Second problem with Biden’s video pitch. He has indeed worked to empower women — he was an author of the Violence Against Women Act. But he also has that really nasty history on the Anita Hill matter. Hill had the courage to show up and testify before the world about Clarence Thomas’s lecherous behavior as a boss. This was in 1991, when no one ever talked about that stuff in public. And Biden, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did nothing but ask her embarrassing questions. (“Were you uncomfortable, were you embarrassed, did it not concern you?”)

He’s been trying to make amends, without really taking responsibility. (“I am so sorry if she believes that … I am so sorry that she had to go through what she went through.”)

Maybe that’s why he made a particular point of lacing into Donald Trump’s history of grabbing women’s private parts. Last year Biden told some college students that if only he and Trump were in high school together, “I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”

At the time, I wrote a column about the inadvisability of advocating an assault on the president, even in the past tense. And the next day Biden called up to say thanks “for showing me what a jerk I was.”

See, this is the reason people keep saying they love Joe Biden. Right before they say they hope he doesn’t run for president.

I'm just not ready to ruin the career of somebody for something like this.

I don't think anyone has accused Joe of anything inappropriate in private. Which leads credence to his claim of (paraphrasing) "I didn't know this was inappropriate." - the fact that he does it to men, women, and in public, and it apparently has no sexual connotation or harassment (according to the accusers themselves).

Do I think that Biden was getting a sexual thrill here? No.
Do I think Biden should be taken out back and shot? No.
Do I think these women should speak up and say stop this, this is not alright, what is wrong with you? Yes.
Do I think Biden should be forbidden from running? No.
Do I think that a number of women who have experienced such behavior in their lives will find Biden a less than desirable primary candidate? Yes.
Do I think it would matter in a general election? Clearly not given the current President.

As for "me too", these women have every right to stand up and say "this man did this creepy thing and it was wrong" and be believed and not have their stories downplayed or ignored.

Have you all noticed none of this stuff was shouted from the housetops until it became apparent that Joe was running for president? Republican damage control through their smear campaigns.