Can we at least admit he misspoke?

[tonedevil]

in regards to VP Biden's remarks that have aroused at least a little controversy, I understand he wanted to illustrate that it is possible to work with politicians with whom you strogly disagree. It seems to me it would be a stronger yet safer argument to use Republican Senators he has worked with rather than a Democrat who was still fighting for segregation, but it still works with his message. In answer to a legitimate complaint that there are too many controversies around Biden the remarks I am referring to are these:

Mr. Biden, speaking at a fund-raiser at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City on Tuesday night, stressed the need to “be able to reach consensus under our system,” and cast his decades in the Senate as a time of relative comity. His remarks come as some in his party say that Mr. Biden, the former vice president, is too focused on overtures to the right as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination.
At the event, Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” said Mr. Biden, 76, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

If he is going to continue to tell that story he should work really hard to get all the words right. The word swap that caused this to be an issue is substituting boy for Senator. Biden has been telling this story of his prowess at handling virulent racists for a bit of time now, but it never hit the big time until what I believe is an unacknowledged misstatement. In the past he has said that Senator Eastland never called him Senator always son. That makes a lot more sense and is a lot less controversial than he never called me boy he always called me son. In the first example it is clear Eastland was seriously disrespectful to Biden who was a fellow Senator. In the second example son seems like it could be an endearment in comparison to the alternative. It also causes one to wonder if Biden understands who Eastland would call boy.
At this point Biden and his campaign have not acknowledged the misspeaking and I think that is giving this story more legs than it might have. Nobody has actually called Biden a racist, but that is what him, his campaign, and his supporters have been arguing against. This could have been put to bed quite quickly if the boy-son part would have been handled.

[Honeycombe8]

1. I wish posters would put in the Biden statement they're speaking of, when they do their posts.

There are different statements on different days. There there is the eulogy that started it all. Then there are the numerous rally speeches where he talks about "unity" with all Republicans, etc.

[tonedevil]

9. I edited to try to make that more clear. Thanks /nt

[Honeycombe8]

20. Thanks. That DOES make it clearer.

There are just a number of posts, each apparently being posted after the poster has seen or read something, so the post picks up with his argument for or against some unidentified statement or behavior by Biden. It's confusing, because htey are not always referring to the same thing.

Anyway, I think too much is being made of this segregationist thing. It is just a fact that there were days in the past where the two sides worked with each other in order to pass legislation. It was done by everyone who was successful at gettng things passed. Republicans and Democrats alike.

Biden has solid cred as far as civil rights and racism go. So there's no chance that he was even silently sympathetic with, or inadvertently helped, the racists in their goals.

BUT...as a moderate who has agreed with Biden in the past about working across the aisle (governing requires that; it's not a choice), I now have a different view. BECAUSE TIMES AND THE PARTIES HAVE CHANGED. We no longer have a Republican Party that is even nominally ethical or has any desire of working with the Democrats. They have supported shocking, anti-American policies, have run a fake "investigation" in the House (headed by Trump loyalist Devin Nunes), etc.

We're not in Kansas, anymore, Joe.

I think he's stuck in a time warp and hasn't been fully aware of all that has gone on in the last several years. Maybe it's because h was in mourning for his son. Maybe because he was relieved to be free of politics for a while, after being in it for so long. Who knows?

But to "work with" and be "unified" with the likes of McConnell (a Biden friend, no less) and Nunes, would require the Democrats to give up much, IMO. In desperation for a deal, I fear Biden may give up the pantry so he can get a pound of sugar.

[tonedevil]

24. I don't think the talking about working with a segregationist...

is where Biden went wrong I think he accidentally used the word boy instead of Senator and it ruined his message. As in he never called me boy, he always called me son -vs- he never called me Senator, he always called me son.

[emmaverybo]

32. As it turns out, the senator called younger white guys boy or son. Story about Ted Kennedy in

another thread. Although boy could be used as a racial epithet, it was also a common rural Southernism without reference to race, but rather to a hierarchal relationship.

Of course that, its originating in how one addressed an employee, an actual son, a “lesser” is what made it into such a humiliating term when used on adult male black people.

Biden’s point was not that he escaped a racial epithet for a condescending term.
It was that unlike with Kennedy whom the senator called boy, he was son.

Sure, Biden should have known how Booker and Harris would react. (Sarcasm)

[tonedevil]

34. Do you think these two sentences...

are equally effective in expressing the idea that being called son was disrespectful?
He never called me Senator, he always called me son.
He never called me boy, he always called me son.

[emmaverybo]

47. Stop parsing. You are not a linguist. You have taken to dismissing any new information and to

quibbling simply to keep asserting and defending your original thesis.

[tonedevil]

48. Ok boy. /nt

[Honeycombe8]

40. Oh, yeah.

You know, I'm not a Biden supporter, but this line of attack is ridiculous, IMO.

I don't know what he actually said, really, but I know what he meant. The elder statesmen put him in his place by calling attention to Biden's youth and inexperience.

[stonecutter357]

2. It's time to move on ...

[tonedevil]

3. OK / nt

[onetexan]

17. +1 -K&R. People are twisting Biden's words big time

[Cheap_Trick]

4. He must have a foot fetish

because he keeps sticking them in his mouth.

Did he misspeak here?

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

"Biden told donors at an event at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday evening that he would not “demonize” the rich and promised that “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change,” Bloomberg News reported.

Biden’s assurance to donors in New York came shortly after his appearance at the Poor People’s Campaign Presidential Forum in Washington on Monday."

[Amyishere]

6. he is a friend to the rich and the bigoted

But it's supposed to be wrong to point that out?

[Thekaspervote]

12. Oh go away!!

this doesn’t look like a man who’s friend with the rich and bigoted


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/12/1748508/-Joe-Biden-caught-on-camera-when-no-one-was-watching

[Eliot Rosewater]

16. Got some outsiders here, I am going to walk away, fuck this.. This will very soon

become BASH AT WILL any and all ACTUAL Democrats.

[onetexan]

18. Ignore them. Theyre trying to dissuade people from Biden.

[emmaverybo]

39. Second the emotion. Great link.

[stonecutter357]

33. who is the rich and bigoted friend ?

[Skya Rhen]

11. Rich people like Bernie?

[Amyishere]

5. it's only okay for him to be tonedeaf about the past if it's the past

but it's not. Not with prejudice and bigotry, it's not.

So ask him how he feels about the use of the words "concentration camps" to describe the facilities that immigrants are being detained in, and whether people should get along in congress today and "compromise" where the safe and sanitary conditions of the children are concerned. The children who are sleeping on the cold concrete and being woken up every two hours. The ones they don't let legislators in to see.

Ask him if they are concentration camps, and after you get his answer you will know whether he has changed at all or not, and what he will allow should he become the president. I don't want a president who will pardon human rights abuses. I want one that will put them on trial.

[tonedevil]

8. Is this really bashing in your opinion? /nt

[Thekaspervote]

13. YES.. YES it is

[Peacetrain]

14. No

[tonedevil]

19. Thank you...

bashing was not my intention even if what I wrote is somewhat critical.

[Peacetrain]

21. I did not think you were bashing.. and I do not think VP Biden misspoke..

He has made it clear numerous times.. that certain powerful DEMOCRATIC senators when he was first elected would dismiss him and use demeaning ways of talking to another senator by calling him son.. instead of Senator Biden.. can you imagine for a second if one of our older Senators started referring to AOC as young lady.. nope.. the fact that others misunderstood or worse yet willfully tried to make it something it wasnt, is not VP Bidens problem.. but he is handling it.. because this shit will never end.. and you have to have someone who can handle it..

[tonedevil]

22. This is where I believe he misspoke...

he said He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me 'son'. Previously when he has used this story he has said He never called me 'senator," Biden told the Jones supporters. "He called me 'son'. I hope you can see that one word changes the character of that entire story, I certainly do.

[NYMinute]

43. Give it up. This won't get a single vote to your Senator BS. nt

[tonedevil]

49. Don't want any votes for...

Senator Sanders, but I also don't need to be a jerk about his name.

[NYMinute]

58. BS aren't his initials? nt

[tonedevil]

61. They certainly are...

and I'm certain that you are not so juvenile as to choose that as your shorthand reference for the Senator just because those initials are most frequently used to denote the words bull shit.

[emmaverybo]

44. Of dear Gawd, give me patience. NT

[tonedevil]

50. POOF...

you have patience.

[emmaverybo]

52. That made me laugh in a good way. NT

[tonedevil]

53. Thanks...

I'm trying to keep it somewhat light, sometimes these discussions get me wound a little too tight.

[demmiblue]

35. Oh my. Perhaps log off for a wee bit.

You have only been here for a few months... pace yourself.

[JoeOtterbein]

15. Criticizing Joe takes too much time & energy away from attacking...

...Bernie non-stop!

[Demsrule86]

23. No he said what he meant...you can work with the worst in order to get stuff done.

There is nothing wrong with this...and the faux...(not working) outrage is from supporters of candidates and in some case the candidates themselves who are losing to Biden.

[tonedevil]

25. In the past...

he has manged to say he never called me Senator, he always called me son, but this time he said he never called me boy, he always called me son. It really does change the sentiment.

[LAS14]

30. Read this post about Eastman calling Ted Kennedy 'boy.'

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287159970

[tonedevil]

38. Apparently...

Senator Eastland was a horror show of a man who felt very free to insult and demean anyone.

[NYMinute]

26. He did not misspeak

He was talking to adults whom he trusted would not need his words broken down to a kindergarten level of comprehension nor did he expect his benign speech about needing to work with the most heinous characters to be nefariously twisted as something uncouth.

[tonedevil]

27. I've written this a lot in here...

but here you go: when he made these remarks the other night he said he never called me boy, he always called me son when he has told the story in the past he has said he never called me Senator, he always called me son. You do see the difference don't you?

[NYMinute]

41. Either way, he was saying he was insulted. nt

[tonedevil]

51. If I'm expecting to be called boy...

son is an upgrade.

[emmaverybo]

45. YES.

[MineralMan]

28. More like we misunderstood...

[tonedevil]

37. I think...

he never called me Senator, he always called me son and he never called me boy, he always called me son express two very different sentiments. If I expected he would call me Senator and he called me son I would be insulted, but if I expected he would call me boy and he referred to me as son I would be pleasantly surprised. That's why I maintain he misspoke, he meant to say one word, but a different one came out.

[MineralMan]

55. Could be, but we're overanalyzing.

Frustrating.

[tonedevil]

56. I'm pretty sure...

the word boy is what motivated Senator Harris and Senator Booker to make the statements they did. What he said can easily sound like he doesn't understand that in the hierarchy of insults son is not as demeaning as boy.

[LAS14]

29. Apparently he didn't mis-speak. Check this post:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287159970

[tonedevil]

31. Even in light of Kennedy being amused at being called boy...

I don't think Biden's sentence makes much sense if he is saying the Senator didn't call him boy, he called him son.

[monmouth4]

36. Biden is so far down my list, this really doesn't matter to me. Maybe folks should move on..n/t

[tonedevil]

42. If it doesn't matter to you...

that's cool I'll stay here for a while you go on ahead.

[monmouth4]

46. TY

[LAS14]

62. Right. Biden's mistake is not realizing that his audience wasn't aware of...

... Eastman's habit. He'd probably told the story too many times to senate insiders.

[tulipsandroses]

54. Yes he Misspoke. And there is nothing wrong with admitting when you are wrong

In fact, it makes you look stronger. Not weaker. It would draw a stark contrast to what we have now in the Whitehouse if he had just acknowledged that he did not realize that his words had a negative impact.

By the way, Garret Haake interviewed BLACK VOTERS in South Carolina at Rep Clyburn's Fish Fry and they were troubled by his boy/son comments and wanted him to apologize. So DU posters really do not have to acknowledge that he misspoke. The people that are hurt/troubled by his words are the ones that matter.

As a black woman, I don't take issue with Biden talking about working with segregationists. I don't think most people have a problem with that. Garrett Haake pointed that out regarding the people he interviewed. it was the boy/son comment and the doubling down that was troublesome.

Biden has a way of saying - I am not going to apologize. He's said that for other issues. That is troublesome. I like Biden. Like Rev. Al said today, he took many shots with Pres Obama for 8 yrs. He's got a long record of fighting for civil rights so no one is going to argue that he is racist. But an apology goes a long way. It says a whole lot about you.

This whole saga would have been a nothing burger if he had acknowledged that he misspoke instead of doubling down.

He's still got plenty of time to fix this.

[tonedevil]

57. Thank you...

I feel you say what I'm trying to much better.

[Demit]

63. The fact that he doesn't seem to try to, or even want to, understand how his words or actions

affect others is, as you say, troublesome.

[BlueWI]

64. Very well said.

Digging heels in was not a good choice for settling things quickly.

[Blue_true]

60. I can believe that he misspoke. But when making a joke or a point about serious issues like race,

he should slow up and think through what he is about to say before saying it.

I don't doubt that he is a good person, never have since I have known of him.

[mtnsnake]

65. In defence of Biden, I heard he dozed off at the podium & was talking in his sleep when he said it

That would explain why he won't apologize because talking in your sleep doesn't count.

[treestar]

66. I don't think in some people's eyes he can say or do anything right

As long as he is in first place.

Which is sad, because they are only telling me their candidates can't win unless he's gone.

We have to beat the Dotard. Show us why your candidate can beat the Dotard.

[oasis]

67. 100% this. nt