Former Vice President and potential Democratic 2020 contender Joe Biden has quickly become a major distraction for his party and its voting base as the fight for the presidential nomination takes shape. Former President Barack Obama’s number two is now facing accusations of inappropriate touching from seven women. This is a #MeToo moment unlike any other, though.
Biden has long been the recipient of a certain amount of reverence in Washington. Politicians and other political operatives on both sides of the aisle appear to be struggling to define the behavior of the man who, despite not having formally entered the nomination campaign, is a front-runner in the primary polls.
Excusing Biden’s Behavior Without Excusing It
Joe Biden
Democrats are painfully practicing verbal jiu-jitsu in their attempts to express faux sympathy for Biden’s accusers while, at the same time, brushing off his behavior as something other than sexual. No-one with an R after their name would be afforded the same benefit of the doubt.
Regardless of how anyone, including Biden himself, interprets his habit of being a little too touchy-feely with women and young girls, the timing of the accusations against him does seem a little too convenient. Everyone has been awaiting his decision on running for his party’s nomination to take on President Donald Trump in 2020 and it certainly seemed likely that Biden would enter the race very soon. A political hit-job appears to have been hatched, then – but it was certainly orchestrated by someone within his own party.
Uncle Joe’s Cowardly Response
Despite fostering an image of the blunt, plain-spoken guy from a blue-collar background, Biden’s response to the whole affair smacks of cowardice. He has issued a series of fawning excuses and half-hearted apologies – the latest one by video – but refuses to question the motives of those who have obviously engineered this plot to stop him entering the crowded Democratic field of candidates.
Not only is he not directly apologizing to the women – all Democrats – who have recently come forward with their stories, but he is also avoiding a confrontation with his own party’s progressives, who are plotting against him. Some have suggested that Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) people are behind the plot; Sanders is Biden’s closest rival in the polls at this point, but Bernie has denied any involvement.
Instead, Biden – a 36-year senator – decided to go after “right wing trolls,” as numerous video clips emerge in which he can be seen touching and caressing various females and often pressing his face into their hair. It seems that, in stark contradiction to his rather weak tough-guy projection, Biden simply does not have the courage to blast those within his party who are sabotaging his 2020 prospects.
Dems Do Not Want Candidate Biden
There are several reasons why the extreme left of the Democratic Party would not want Biden to run – not least of which, perhaps, is the well-documented and very inappropriate habit “Uncle Joe” has of putting his hands on almost any female within reach. Were Biden to secure the nomination, the issue would certainly have come up during the presidential campaign. The party that portrays itself as the champion of women’s rights would find itself in a very awkward position: Defending a candidate who, at least, appears to have no respect for personal space and, at worst, could be accused of making numerous unwanted sexual advances.
Creepy Uncle Joe
It is also worth noting that Obama turned out to be quite a disappointment for progressives, who expected him to take the country much further to the left during his eight years in the White House. As his V.P., Biden is attached to that disappointment and the progressive-socialist wing has no desire to be disappointed again.
The entire affair is an extremely inconvenient distraction for Trump’s opponents, and one wonders if Democratic Party leaders are not already imploring Biden, privately, not to enter the race. Regardless of who is behind the sudden attacks on his behavior, Biden deserves little sympathy: From the sidelines, he cheered on those who attempted to demolish – without evidence – Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s career, reputation, and family merely to try to scupper his Supreme Court nomination. Karma, it seems, has her hands all over Joe Biden.
The one big question nobody wants to tackle is this: Given that Biden spent so many years in the Senate and given that his disturbing behavior was no secret on Capitol Hill, how many current and former senators from both parties should be feeling deeply ashamed that this issue is only now being addressed?
