Vice President Joe Biden has many fine attributes but his gift for gaffes is beginning to rival Dan Quayle’s record. In this gem from Blacksburg, Virginia, Biden declares that he has never seen it written that we cannot be the leader of the world in automobile production in the 20th Century.
It’s astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness…takes its toll
But Listen Closely
Not for very much longer
I’ve got to…keep control
It is clear that Biden recently ran into this lot:
Did Neil Kinnock write it?
Lotta,
Amen on Ryan and that was a great speech by Biden.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Joe is the only reason I voted for Obama. I liked him then, I like him now.
LK,
I think you misconstrued my comment. I think this verbal stagger on Biden’s part is wholly unremarkable and newsworthy and not worth notice much less jackass points. The guy can barely make a single speech without some kind of blunder or malapropism. Reporting on it seems to me to be on par with reporting water is wet.
Raff, and Ryan can’t even defend his own plan in an interview, Somebody give that man a script because his performance was poor at best.
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SWM, I have always found y’all to be welcoming too. It must punch some kind of emotional button because of the way it sounds with a real southern drawl. (Not what Paula Deen has morphed it into- she is self parody IMO.) When I would venture to Tennessee to visit relatives, stopping in little diners for sustenance, by the time I had gotten to Memphis I had already slid back into the drawl. Hate the attitudes but love the speech.
Would Ms. Palin have been capable of this speech, even with notes written on her hand? Dick Cheny (spits), Dan Quayle, Spiro Agnew? I doubt Mondale or Gore could have done the subject (military suicide) the simple human justice and empathy it requires. How about Paul Ryan?
Yea, Joe looks pretty good to me, IMO he comes through when it counts.
lotta, Nearly everyone in Texas says y’all even my well educated daughter, and she continued to used it when she went to school in the northeast. It is viewed as being welcoming by many. You are right about the election madness. It went into high gear when Ryan was picked as it did four years ago when Palin was picked.
Lotta,
The Right wants us in economic chains and Romney/Ryan want to strengthen the chains that keep the 1% on top.
Mespo, Gene,
Tough audience much? I spent fifty years saying 20th century and have made that blunder here in the 21st century. How many Jackass points do I get for that? I put the wrong month on a check last week- have I maxed out my Jackass points for this year yet?
As to “y’all”, I used that word last month, a few months before that and will use it again a couple of times before the end of the year. I have used that word in posting here. Does that add to my Jackass quotient or is it neutral for purposes of assessment? I suggest the pragmatic approach is to run through the list of VP’s (and VP nominees including the current one) in your lifetime and grade on a curve, Joe looks pretty good from that perspective point.
When the kerfuffle over Biden using “y’all” started I posted elsewhere that I was introduced to it in a rural, Caucasian population and that it was variously appropriate when talking to an individual or a group and did not denote subgroups. There is a variant, “all y’all” that is applicable and used to mean all members of a large, mixed race, ethnic, sex etc. group (the better half favors “all y’all” as the proper form) but does not diminish the use of “y’all” to indicate all persons in a group of various and sundry persons.
I even went to Wikipedia and Webster to see if my ‘training’ and understanding was conventional. It is. “Y’all” is a part of speech labeled as a part of speech I didn’t even know existed, apparently people in the word business have given it some thought.
I have seen the Vice President attacked for the use of that word as well as using the ‘chains’ metaphor and alleging that he was being racist (in one or both regards) and just find it absurd. Indentured servitude (slavery lite) may have been a more apt description but its slavery none the less and the burden fell most heavily on women. Stump speeches are theater and Joe is a good showman.
Nick
Apparently you dislike the metaphor but there are people and interests that want us in chains, economic or ideological or both, there are shackles with both of our names on them IMO and it has nothing to do with race, it’s class all the way. I think he’s absolutely correct. Ab-so-lutely correct. We just have to disagree on the “dispicable” nature of his remark.
****************
*I think ‘y’all are just getting caught up in the final countdown to the election madness that infects all blawgs and water-cooler conversations starting about now.
Oh jeeze, I just wrote a rant over the proper use of “y’all”- I think I’m infected with it too. Just shoot me. 🙂
You’re projecting Swarthmoremom, NOBODY tells me what to think or say..NOBODY. If you can’t tell that about me maybe I overestimated you. If you think I’m a Republican [or Democrat] then you’re calling me a liar.
nick, Really? I am glad Obama is hitting hard rather than let the Koch Bros and Rove’s SUPERPACS do him in while Romney plays innocent. i think you have the new talking points down pat.
Darren, Good clip and I wish we could have one of those bubbles above the Admiral’s head showing his thoughts. I was working a case where a Puerto Rican was convicted of raping a child. This was a civil lawsuit involving the landlord and whether he had done proper background checks on the Puerto Rican tenant who brutally raped this young girl. The attorney who hired me asked if I could check immigration records on the Puerto Rican rapist. I laughed, thinking she was joking, and then had to delicately tell her Puerto Ricans are US citizens
An adult.
An elected official.
Afraid.
The Island of Guam.
Would capsize.
Yep.
I have to admire the admirable Admiral’s restraint in simply smirking.
Assange arrest? happening now on live stream from London at Ecuadorian Embassy. A diplomatic car and a police van outside:
http://bambuser.com/v/2905015
Swarthmore Mom, Thanks for the clip. I had forgotten the “clean and articulate” comment. I think part of the reason was since Obama forgave Biden for that statement then I was going to also. Forgiveness is strength, not weakness. I sense I am going to get bombarded here, hopefully not. I am not trying to change anyones mind w/ my comments. If folks want, they can use my dear departed mother’s favorite phrase and tell me to go “sh%t in my hat.” When you’re independent you see things differently. Obama has broken the heart of a pretty tough guy who does not give his heart cavalierly. That’s all I was expressing, a profound sadness in the path Obama has chosen to take for reelection. Reasonable people can disagree.
Folks:
I offer you this to cleanse your palate between gaffs of various elected officials. The admirable admiral deserves credit for his candor.
I would fast forward to 1:00 to spare the aggravation of the wait.
I was talking with a guy today who’s a pretty die hard Republican (more like a Libertarian without all the teabagger baggage). He commented on an ad he saw recently digging at Joe Biden for some gaffe Biden had made. The guy said he thought it was ridiculous to take shots at Biden for gaffes because gaffes are what we all expect from Biden. If Joe makes a speech and there’s no gaffe, it’s fair for one to assume he lost his place.
Joe Biden used ‘chains’ metaphor before to hit Republicans
By James Rainey
August 15, 2012
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-joe-biden-used-chains-metaphor-before-to-hit-republicans-20120815,0,6322670.story
Joe Biden’s comment that Republican bank deregulation is “going to put y’all back in chains” kept the presidential race in a lather Wednesday, with GOP candidate Mitt Romney accusing the Democrats of “division and attack and hatred.” Biden responded that his remark played off a Republican refrain about “unshackling” the economy.
The vice president might also have noted that he has used the “chains” rhetoric before, as have conservatives, in a different context.
Responding to a primary-season debate in October, Biden said the Republican proposals would return the country to the policies of the Bush era, which he said “put the middle class in chains.” The full comment was: “The last time we liberated the economy under their proposals, the last eight years, put the middle class in chains,” Biden said, in reference to the presidency of George W. Bush. “My lord, how many times do we have to go back to that horror movie?”
The response got considerably less attention than Biden’s speech Tuesday in Danville, Va., before a racially mixed crowd. As Politics Now noted earlier, it’s hard to see how Biden’s remark didn’t have a class and race twist to them. National political figures (from Delaware) don’t make appeals to “y’all” unless they are reaching for folks a little outside their social set.
But it’s also apparent that Biden previously has rebutted the Republican claims that they would “free” or “unshackle” the economy with a similar retort. GOP policies don’t free Americans, they oppress them. A difference in the two “unchained” episodes was that, the last time Biden rolled the metaphor out, he specifically said it was the middle class he believed had been mistreated. His comments Tuesday got more attention because the presidential race is in full swing and because there were many African Americans in the Virginia crowd.
Biden’s full comment about Romney’s proposal to loosen regulations: “Romney wants to, he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” Romney took great umbrage at this, he said Wednesday. Though the one-time investment manager did not make clear if he was insulted on behalf of bankers, African Americans, the middle class … or all the above.
The “unchain” rhetoric is not the preserve of Biden, alone. About a year ago, campaigning at the Iowa fairgrounds, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum described how President Obama’s healthcare law represented “the end of liberty,” adding: “They will put you in chains called ‘Obamacare,’ and you will never break away.”
The bondage created by excessive regulation is a familiar one in conservative commentary. “All of us are bound in chains of laws and petty regulations,” John Stossel, the libertarian and Fox News personality, said earlier this year.
The difference in the rhetorical gambits is who is marked as the oppressor. Conservatives say it is the government, meddling in American’s lives and stifling freedoms and commerce. Liberals say it is big business, visiting jobs and economic benefits on the few, while the many work hard for little gain.
The two sides seldom represent a sensibility probably shared by many Americans, who feel big institutions — in both the public and private sector — often don’t have their interests at heart. And it’s not easy getting either to reform.
DHMCarver, I didn’t get the memo that Russell Simmons was appointed spokesperson for the black electorate, could you please send me a copy.
Wow!! The wagons are circling. I am not the enemy, I simply see things as they are. That was my profession. Not only was Obama the first candidate I ever donated money to, he was the first “mainstream” presidential candidate I voted for since Jimmy Carter[the first time, John Anderson 1980 is now still my favorite vote ]. I’ll probably be going third party again. I’ll sing “To Dream the Impossible Dream” as I enter the booth.
On a more important note, Felix Hernandez of tthe Mariners just tossed a perfect game againt Tampa.