Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Protests Too Much

Here is (a portion of) Barack Obama's reply to Joe Biden:

I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate. African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate.

Perhaps it is too much to expect a politician, even the sainted Obama, to rise above the temptation to misconstrue an opponent's remarks for political advantage. But if Joe Biden were free to speak tonight, he might well reply that if the word "clean" means "ethical" (as I had assumed it did), then nobody would apply that word to Jackson , Braun , or, ahem, Al Sharpton. (Shirley Chisholm, it should be said, really was a very clean politician.) And - question - if it is a racial gaffe for Biden to call Obama "articulate" and "clean," what do we call it when Obama associates himself with this rogues' gallery?

01/31 07:58 PM