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Joe Biden Has a Serious Problem
Vice President Joe Biden’s gaffes are legendary, but they’ve quickly devolved from amusing to concerning to downright creepy.
There are myriad harmless, “good ol’ Uncle Joe” moments when he embarrasses a crowd with a malaprop or faux pas. Mixing up peoples names, saying Obamacare “is a big [expletive] deal,” or praising Obama’s foreign policy with, “the president has a big stick. I promise you.”
Then there is the casual racism. Like when Biden told an Indian-American that “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” He called predatory bankers “shylocks” and claimed Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
But uglier impulses are often at work. At a 2012 campaign rally, Biden warned a primarily African-American audience that if Mitt Romney became president, he was “gonna put y’all back in chains.” He angrily snapped at a lowly manager of a Wisconsin custard shop, calling him a “smartass” for telling a mild joke about taxes. Then there was the time Biden claimed fiscal conservatives in Congress “have acted like terrorists” for daring to disagree on policy.
But now our vice president regularly dives head-first into creepy behavior, mostly with females. There was Biden seeming to grope D.C. reporter Amie Parnes at a 2013 holiday party.
Then Biden’s creepy display last month with Sen. Chris Coons’ daughter at the Delaware senator’s swearing-in.
Today Biden manhandled the wife of new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter while Carter was standing in front of both, oblivious. The Vice President held Stephanie Carter’s shoulders, leaned into her hair and whispered into her ear. It was a “Creepy Rob Lowe” ad come to life.
As usual, the press laughed off the disturbing behavior as just Joe being Joe. But in today’s culture of third-wave feminism and constant gender-based outrage, how long can Democrats overlook the leering, grabbing creep that they elected twice?
Published in General
And that’s only what’s been caught on camera. Geesh.
Democrats can literally get away with anything. And I mean literally in the literal sense, not like Joe Biden means when he uses that word.
Hey, let’s not forget the biker chick.
Jon,
You are not suggesting that this aging pomposity who gave up any vestige of dignity to become Vice President of the United States and live the life of BHO’s trained monkey, has actually lost it completely? I’m shocked Jon, yes shocked. It just isn’t proper for a Ricochet editor to make fun of the Vice President.
That’s my job.
Heeree’s Joey!!!
Regards,
Jim
It is unfair to suggest that Joe Biden gropes women . . . exclusively. This is my favorite Joe Biden picture.
This behavior has gone past quirky or funny. If Average Citizen Joe Biden tried feeling up someone’s wife or daughter like this, he would get decked. I’m curious when Democrats will catch on.
♫Sitting on a park bench…♫
Biden’s lack of inhibitions resemble what happens to someone who has suffered from a series of mild strokes.
Seen at an anti-stalking protest event:
Joe Biden – Putting the Vice back into the Vice Presidency!
It didn’t fit in well to my post, but there was a second Biden moment today:
Oh, wait:
Joe knows Somalis because he rides in cabs.
You know, the comments are creepy, yes, but I don’t want to live in a world where an old guy touching a young woman in a basically friendly way is inherently seen as “creepy.” He doesn’t look like he’s harassing these women to me. He has his hands on their arms, their shoulders–that’s not creepy. Don’t we make men terrified enough as it is? He’s an old guy. It’s not creepy, it’s grandfatherly. His comments are weird. Not crazy about his politics. Wish he weren’t a heartbeat away from the presidency (although even he might be an improvement at this point)–but those photos look pretty innocuous to me.
Men of Ricochet: I figure creepy’s when the old guy is trying to cop a feel–and even then, if he’s that age–and I don’t care how powerful he is–I’d see it as harmless. I’d probably say, “Joe! What are you doing, you’re married!” remove his hands, and let embarrassment take care of the rest.
Ladies of Ricochet, I reckon you know what I mean. First, that’s not creepy; second, even if it was, it is an important Lady skill to be able to decreep slightly creepy old guys without making them too embarrassed; third, if someone crosses the line between creepy old guy and “stalker, molester, etc.,” we have quite a number of tools for despatching them to hell. But let’s not use the latter tools on the former kinds of case–not even if we dislike them as politicians. We don’t want men to be afraid of smiling at us or touching our arms. Not least because that world would be no fun for us.
Think of the possibilities!
Stephanie Carter, Amie Parnes. OK Claire, you get those two as women who should be able to handle themselves.
But look at that picture of Chris Coon’s daughter again and tell me that isn’t creepy.
This may not be a CoC compliant observation, but given some recent Ricochet conversations, I have questions concerning what that cop is doing with that piece of paper.
@12,
Agree wholeheartedly. Biden is a walking disaster from a politics standpoint but the touchy-feely stuff is essentially innocent.
Claire, not buying it at all. Both hands on the shoulders, swooped in, body close — it is just plain creepy, again and again. If that were a Republican, we would already hear the sophisticated counter-arguments about how the apparent non-reaction was actually a freeze response, nodding in agreement was a victim negotiating for release, and the subsequent statements (such as Coons’) all effectively coerced due to the power relationships involved.
You pre-discount even an egregious “cop”, so I guess there’s no point in pursuing a lesser charge, which in this case is repeated inappropriate physical contact by a man in a position of great power — particularly over the career prospects of those men whose female family members he chooses to peruse. You’ve already granted him an indulgence upon the bodies and social standing of any women he may choose to feel up, and presumably the burden will be upon the women to react as you would have them.
You know — lots of people in Washington D.C. manage to get the whole “grandfatherly” thing down just fine, and thousands of meetings and partings go unremarked. Is it a media conspiracy to make Joe look bad? Is it a predisposition on the part of everybody across the political spectrum to single him out and criticize him for unremarkable behavior?
This looks pretty simple to me. I daresay it looks pretty simple to most people here. We don’t need an education to know that this sort of self-gratifying display of dominance, this short course of social conquest, this breach of etiquette is exactly what a good number of fights get started over. We are humans, not socially constructed theses, and if anybody pawed my wife like that, I would have him on the ground if she didn’t beat me to it. I’m not saying he has a trunk full of duct tape. I’m saying it’s inappropriate, and transparently so. We have a word for the this type of behavior. It is creepy.
Far from being cowed by womyn through political correctness, the response you’re seeing from people here is all about tradition and conservative views — conservative men defend women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OnpkDWbeJs
Claire, that’s an interesting point. I’m a huggy kind of person and I’d hate to be in a world without that.
Yeah, and Doc is so tall, reaching a woman’s shoulders is the best he can do.
I am willing to go with Amie Parnes as someone “handling herself” well. Heck, she may have just been reacting to a joke for all I know.
That said, how is Stephanie Carter supposed to react? Make a loud jokey comment with her husband at the podium at a press conference?
Seems to me both Mrs. Carter and Ms. Coon let their expressions and body language do the talking. And it wasn’t complimentary.
This “problem” of Joe’s is really old news… he had this reputation long before the VP spot, and this in a town that knows all about how men with power can use and misuse women. I’ve heard from women who have met him, who know well the difference between a hug, a caress and a grope, that what happens with Joe is definitely a grope. Nothing that I’ve heard is any worse than that, but still….
In an earlier time a man who was always trying to get a quick “feel” was a fact of life for women, something to be dealt with as best one could. Those times are gone now, and a boss with Joe’s roving hands would be in court a dozen times over. If he was in a different party he’s have been shamed out of office years ago.
I do indeed. Anyone remember when Bush Creeps Out German Chancellor?
It doesn’t bother me. Biden is the walking, talking stereotype of a smarmy politician who kisses babies and steals their lollipops. I am open to re-education, but Claire’s earlier comment is pretty much where I am at.
I came also to make that comparison.
It’s not as though we have any effect. It’s just galling to hear it excused here. Oh, well. I guess we can just stop criticizing Democrats. Wouldn’t want to seem unpleasant.
Joe Biden doesn’t have a problem. The GOP has a problem. There isn’t a Republican man in DC who would survive a series of images like this. Any person of sufficient notoriety learns to feel the camera ever-present, and to keep his hands where they ought to be. We can argue that this is harmless and grandfatherly, or creepy and inappropriate, but the result is that Democrats get away with sexual assault and Republicans can hardly appear before a camera without being dragged down by the screeching, poo-flinging monkeys of the Democrat-Media Complex and their useful idiots from coast to coast.
It’s well and good to declare any unpleasantness unpleasant, and to wash our hands of the whole thing, whatever the thing of the day is, and to “pretend this national disgrace isn’t happening”. But we don’t win that way. We sneer at those who carry the ball, the mere ball, the mere, petty, bourgeois ball. We’re better than that all of that ball business.
Jaaaaay….it’s never creepy when a guy who looks like you walks into a room, flashes a big smile, and swoops in for hearty hug. You are lucky the gals actually let you go without licking your shirt.
While women should be free to deflect pawing or move out of reach of an old fool who can’t keep his hands to himself, these ladies were constrained by the rolling cameras nearby. I suspect Joey has figured out that women would rather submit to his boney old hands upon them than embarrass him by “making a fuss” – because that’s what guys like Joe say; “Why are you making such a fuss? I’m only trying to be friendly!” Look at the body language in these photos. The women (and the child) are not leaning into the embrace, their hands seek no purchase to return the hug, and there is no eye contact. The guy is an absolute Jackwagon.
Well …
Heterosexual men are still a fact of life for women, and I say, “Thank God.” Everyone here knows I have no strong views at all about marriage debates of any kind–nor any moral authority to speak about them. But I like straight men, and even if I didn’t, would think we need them for a lot of reasons, not least because the human race is propagated–still, mostly–by a process that begins with straight men and straight women finding each other fascinating and wanting to touch each other.
Now, my view is, as long as straight men exist, they’re going to be looking at women and thinking what straight men think. It won’t be the only thing they think, but it’s the thing they think as a basic qualification to be “straight men.” And their parents, their culture, and women need to teach straight men how to get this right.
I figure “right” is, “It’s okay to look, it’s okay to like, it’s okay to want, it’s okay to think ladies look great and smell nice and all sorts-of-touchable, and even okay to smile at them and be friendly. It’s often quite okay to flirt. It’s even okay—if you know them and it’s the right context–to touch some (but not all) parts of their bodies, in certain social contexts. And if you’re an old guy, it’s perfectly fine to do most of that, because most young women see you as, “Grandpa,” I’m afraid. (Although young women should know that old guys don’t like thinking of themselves this way, and if they’re very good at this, they pretend Gramps still has it going, and Gramps loves that.) Now, if you put a hand on her shoulder she flinches and pulls away, back off–she isn’t into it. But it doesn’t make you a creep, just makes her the kind of woman who isn’t comfortable with that. If she doesn’t mind and smiles, that doesn’t necessarily mean, “She’s really into you and wants more,” either. You see, men and women are complicated, and this whole ‘affection–normal friendliness–flirtation–mad with lust’ scale has about 100,000 permutations and variations.”
I want to live in a world where men and women are friendly to each other, and in which women full well know the difference among the following:
*a nice old guy who we like, being affectionate;
* an old guy who maybe we don’t like, and who might have bad breath, leaning a bit too close to us;
*an old guy leaning too close in an icky way–to which we respond not by taking him to court, but by embarrassing him, although not too much, because he’s just an old guy, for heaven’s sake;
*real sexual harassment, which, depending on the circumstances, we deal with using a range of tools, beginning with a) saying, “Knock that off” in a an unmistakably chilling voice that you’d have to be one hell of an idiot to misunderstand; b) warning that if it continues, you will take him to court, and 3) then taking him to court;
*something more serious, which is why we bear arms and use them if necessary. After which we may well be taken to court, but if our judgment was correct, we’ll be promptly acquitted.
I don’t love Biden as a politician, and if in fact he harasses women, to the point where he should be taken to court, it is a damned shame that this hasn’t happened.
But I don’t want to be part of a culture in which those photos look like “harassment” to normal people. As for photo number two, she is clearly over the age of 18. I appreciate the gentlemanly instinct of, “She looks young and we must protect her,” but she is obviously old enough to know how to protect herself–and if she isn’t, time for her to learn, because the world is full of men who must be given all sorts of the right signals at the right time. She’s too old to expect there will always be a chaperone around to defend her honor.
Let’s also worry about protecting our young boys, who shouldn’t have to live in a world in which a photo like that means, “I’ll be taken to court.”
Let’s remember that such a world would simply be no fun for anyone, and let’s remember that if we define extremely serious things like rape and sexual harassment down to this point, we will, ultimately, get to some insane stage at which young men are told on college campuses that they must verbally negotiate every step of touching a woman before they do this–oh, wait, we’re there already–and women wonder what on earth happened to straight men, because they’re acting like eunuchs in pajamas.
This isn’t a weapon we want to play against politicians we don’t like. Did he do something really disgusting to a woman? Nail him for that. But he sure didn’t do it on camera, there, in those photos. You don’t want someone doing that to your son one day–finding a photo in which he has his hands on a woman’s arm and saying, “Creep! Sexual harassment!” Or to you. So don’t do it to him.
Let’s not create or contribute to a culture in which legitimate concerns that women have about rape and real harassment have been transmogrified into, “All men must be terrified at all times that any normal thing they do in the vicinity of a woman will land them in court.”
He’s not Vice President of Italy, you know.
Well I guess we need to pull out the other pictures of Creepy Joe from the swearing in last month just so Claire can see much younger girls flinching away from Joe.
All is not lost, however – Talking Points Memo has an article out asking Democrats when they are going to stop covering for the guy.