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Dumbest remark?
Mike Ahlf
Below, RAW takes Mary Landrieu (D-Governor of Lousyanna, the most corrupt state in the union) for some ill-conceived remarks.
However, I don't think that they qualify as "Dumbest remark of the year"; I think that category belongs to Joe Biden (D - currently running ineptly for President).
Biden's let out three gems recently:
"You don't know my state," he said. "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a Northeast liberal state." - in describing Delaware,
Putting aside the fact that (A) Delaware has one of the highest tax rates next to Taxachussets and (B) the fact that Delaware's only "border" is with a big puddle of water, one gets the feeling reminding people of Delaware's slave history wasn't so bright.
Second up:
"You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking," - Joe Biden describing his "great" relationship with Indian immigrants to Delaware.
And the
final gem:
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man." - in describing political competitor (they're running for the same office) Barack Hussein Obama.
Whether accurate or not, people are taking offense to this all over. This probably qualifies Biden as one of the dumbest politicians - or at least most inept in keeping his big mouth shut - in a long time.
However, let's look at a second issue: when similar things are said from across the aisle, the result is crucifixion. Senators Lott and Allen were beat to a political pulp over much less problematic comments.
My prediction is that the double standard the newsmedia plays for Democrats will be in force; already, the first two have "dropped out" of the news cycle, and the last will probably vanish by tomorrow, and Biden won't pay a political price, or face censure on the floor of the Congress, at all. Were Biden to have an R next to his name instead of a D, these wouldn't stop being "news" until he was drummed out of office.
Observations
Yes, Biden's comments were stupid, but I'm sorry, they're nowehere NEAR the level of what Trent Lott said. As for George Allen, Biden's Indian comment comes closest to that, but otherwise he wasn't saying anything personally degrading or humilating about other people.
Trent Lott was the Senate Majority Leader. George Allen was considered by many to be one of the two frontrunners for the GOP 2008 presidential nod. If Biden were in either of those two positions, it would have been a much bigger deal. Instead Biden is more like former Montana Senator Conrad Burns, whose transgressions dropped off the national radar pretty quickly, with the exception that Biden is running a quixotic campaign for president.
Adam,
I'm going to have to disagree; Trent Lott's comments were an attempt to say something nice at a man's 100th birthday party, and half the 1948 campaigners had campaign planks similar to Thurmond's - not that I'd expect that Lott was really referring to any specific plank in Thurmond's 1948 campaign platform, much less expect that Lott actually knew what Thurmond's 1948 campaign planks were.
Biden's comment can be read that he's proud Delaware was once a slave state, which is much worse in my opinion than saying something nice about a man who once ran for President who happened to have had a segregationist plank in his campaign.
RAW,
Joe Biden is head of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and arguably #3 or #4 as far as Senate Democrat rankings are concerned. He may not be the Majority Leader, but he's pretty darn close.
I still maintain that the major and overriding difference between media treatment of Biden, Lott, and Allen is the fact that Biden's got a D next to his name and Lott and Allen have R's.
Trent Lott was the face of the Senate Republicans. Had his #2 made the same comment, the media attention would have moved on after only a couple of days. No one even noticed when Lott's #2 left the senate, except for the fact that it opened up a senate seat. Even politically aware people probably thought it was Bill Frist. My point is that the drop-off between #1 and #2 is huge when it comes to media attention. On top of that, both Lott and Allen had a questionable history on racial issues.
I do agree, though, about Biden's comments about the Confederacy. If they're not as bad as Trent Lott's comments, they're on the same playing field.
On a side note, I thought that what Biden meant by "border state" was that it was on the border of the north-south divide. Geographically that's not true because of Maryland, but culturally Maryland and Delaware probably would have sided with the South if they could have.
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