१६ जानेवारी, २०२०

"This lack of personal involvement in the struggle did not stop Biden, when he was seeking national office, from inventing a civil rights past for himself."

"[Richard Ben Cramer, in his classic account of the 1988 presidential primaries, What It Takes,] reported on his rhetoric in the primaries in 1988: 'Joe was off on his life… how he started in the civil rights movement…remember?… The marches? Remember how that felt?… And they’re nodding in the crowd, and he’s got them, sure.' Even when his handlers warned him to stop saying this because it was not true, he couldn’t help himself: 'Folks, when I started in public life, in the civil rights movement, we marched to change attitudes.' The plain fact, as [Biden’s biographer Jules] Witcover notes, is that 'he avoided street protest or anything else that smacked of civil disobedience.' He was a concerned observer of, not a participant in, the great dramas of the 1960s. So how could Biden imagine himself as the reincarnation of the Kennedys? Those two words: Irish Catholic. His claim to that legacy is not experiential or particularly ideological. It is ethnic and religious. The Kennedys defined an Irish-American Catholic political identity—white (even in their case conspicuously privileged), yet by virtue of the grimness of Irish history and the outsider status of Catholics, supposedly not guilty of the grave crimes of racial oppression. Its promise was to act as the bridge across the great divide of US society, being mainstream enough to connect to the white majority but with a sufficient memory of past torment to connect also to the black minority. Its underlying appeal was to the very thing that Biden would come to embody—'a sense of the depth of their pain' rooted in 'vivid memories of sad times.' This is what Biden chose when he defined himself as he has throughout his public career: 'I see myself as an Irish Catholic.' And this was indeed a choice. Biden is not an Irish name.... So Biden could have presented himself, had he chosen, as an all-American boy. Instead he identified with his mother’s ethnic ancestry...."

From "The Designated Mourner" by Fintan O’Toole (in The New York Review of Books)(discussing Joe Biden's memoir, "Promise Me, Dad").

६० टिप्पण्या:

Phil 314 म्हणाले...

Did he dodge bullets too?

Lincolntf म्हणाले...

I'm a white Irish Catholic from Massachusetts. The cultural impact of JFK cannot be overstated. I think there was a portrait or bust of JFK in every classroom, whether public or private school, I ever sat.

gilbar म्हणाले...

so, the short version is: Jo Biden is a GOD damned LIAR

Beasts of England म्हणाले...

‘All the civil rights folks used to rub the white hair on my legs. My word as a Biden!’

Hagar म्हणाले...

Give Biden a rest.
The pundit who said Biden suffers from Walter Mitty syndrome had it right.

Shouting Thomas म्हणाले...

Time for the anti-bigotry crusade to die.

There’s nothing left to be done. Refusing to let go of this obsession is what makes the Democrats irrelevant and destructive.

Time to ditch the quotas, the diversity bloviation, the whole pile of obsolete, tiresome crap.

It’s all just a racket now and has been for decades.

Iman म्हणाले...

Just keep the man away from straight razors and rain barrels.

Lincolntf म्हणाले...

The Left cannot do that and survive, ST. Nothing enrages and terrifies a Democrat like a minority NOT in need of Government assistance.

exhelodrvr1 म्हणाले...

Interesting - the O'Hara family in GWTW were Irish Catholics. And slave owners.

gspencer म्हणाले...

"Even when his handlers warned [Biden] to stop saying this because it was not true"

So that's where Brian Williams picked up the tactic.

Would Joe go to Saturday confession after each one of his pro-Planned Parenthood votes, and that would make things all-better/all-square with his "Irish Catholic" identity?

daskol म्हणाले...

Biden's playing a character that got him pretty far in pre 20s politics. In this era, he'll need a more exciting character if he wants to play a prominent part. Note there are no Kennedy-esque Irish Catholic wrestlers in the WWE, and I don't think there ever have been. If Trump is going to be beat, Biden needs to think Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

exhelodrvr1 म्हणाले...

Time for Jon Lovitz' Pathological Liar to make an appearance on SNL

daskol म्हणाले...

Huh, just googled. There is this guy Sheamus, and he speaks Irish, who was WWE champ in the oughts. Someone alert Biden's speechwriters, guy's got an interesting bio.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Slavery wasn't a great crime. It was a market response to a plunder economic system - take what you want and enslave the defeated enemy. That's better for both sides than killing him.

Its point ended with the free market, which made a slave contribute more to the economy working in his own interest than as a slave, so it died out. Not before being defended with new and hopeless justifications (naturally enslaved race), after the real justification (economics) ended.

I'm Full of Soup म्हणाले...

I'm Irish Catholic and from Philadelphia and for the first 40 years of my life I was a liberal Dem yet I've hated Biden forever. He always reminded me of the old Irish Americans blowhards we'd run into when we'd visit my father's family in Minersville, PA in Schuylkill County. Everyone up there knew who the phony blowhards were and despised them too. That is why my nick name for Biden is IBM aka Irish Big Mouth.

Rob म्हणाले...

One consequence of Hunter Biden’s newfound celebrity is that Joe Biden is much less inclined these days to traffic in his other son’s death. “Promise Me, Dad” is a reminder of how shameless and opportunistic Biden had been before Hunter became a thing.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

But but Trump made like eleventy-million lies. Joes just a little fuzzy on details. Like what state he’s in.

Temujin म्हणाले...

Joe Biden has always lived two lives: one that lives in his head and comes out his mouth, the other that resides in reality. And he just cannot quite get his mind around that second life, the one that resides in reality. It has always been who Joe is.

I had a friend in college who we all loved. One of his key traits was his unusual ability to exaggerate in his stories. We used to joke that to understand him you needed to use a formula to translate his stories. Take whatever he said, divide it by 2, then take the square root of that number and you get to the actual detail of what happened.

Joe Biden is that. He made his career bullying some, and charming others with his exaggerated stories that everyone knew had no anchor in reality, yet they liked him for his...way. Today, as an older man he appears doddering, stupid, embarrassing. Some day he'll regale a room of people about the time he was President.

Oso Negro म्हणाले...

I'm a white Irish Catholic from Massachusetts. The cultural impact of JFK cannot be overstated. I think there was a portrait or bust of JFK in every classroom, whether public or private school, I ever sat."

Yes, there is also that great Vietnam memorial in D.C. that attests to his cultural impact.

Wilbur म्हणाले...

IBM? I thought it was Inhaling Bouquets (of) Mademoiselles.

daskol म्हणाले...

The funniest thing about the early Obama campaign was the publicly aired notion that Biden gave the campaign gravitas. That may actually be true in the sense intended by the campaign, but it's still hilarious.

David Begley म्हणाले...

I’m Irish Catholic (Jesuit Division) from Nebraska and I had no idea Biden was Irish. I’ve always thought he was a blowhard and an idiot. Now we find out he’s corrupt.

He ain’t goin’ be President.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

My lovely brunette wife is Black Irish, like Corn Pop.

Iman म्हणाले...

“ But but Trump made like eleventy-million lies. Joes just a little fuzzy on details. Like what state he’s in.”

Let’s clear that up right now. He’ll forever be in the State of Confusion.

daskol म्हणाले...

wrestling lingo is fascinating. for a while, when Howard Stern brought Bubba the Love Sponge to his Sirius channel, Howard was obsessed with it, as Bubba uses a ton of wrestling/carnie talk. the show was stupid and occasionally a little vile, but man, the way he talked.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

A little bird told me that this character's middle name is "Robinette", which is pretty funny.

अनामित म्हणाले...

Lincolntf: I'm a white Irish Catholic from Massachusetts. The cultural impact of JFK cannot be overstated. I think there was a portrait or bust of JFK in every classroom, whether public or private school, I ever sat.

This is sort of thing that makes me so very glad my immediate Irish Catholic ancestors moved away from the northeast and all the ethnic identity-politics crap. (I remember one or two middle-aged ladies in our parish who were into the JFK worship; they gave me the creeps even when I was a little kid.)

Crap like this:

"The Kennedys defined an Irish-American Catholic political identity—white (even in their case conspicuously privileged), yet by virtue of the grimness of Irish history and the outsider status of Catholics, supposedly not guilty of the grave crimes of racial oppression. Its promise was to act as the bridge across the great divide of US society, being mainstream enough to connect to the white majority but with a sufficient memory of past torment to connect also to the black minority."

Lol. Yeah, right. As if the Irish weren't as racist as anybody. There are few things as cringe-inducing to self-respecting Irish-Americans as watching the foolish and whore-ish "professionally Irish" like Biden doing the Oppressed Minority monkey dance.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"A little bird told me that this character's middle name is "Robinette", which is pretty funny."

From the article: "The Robinettes, his paternal grandmother’s kin, traced their ancestry in America to a tract of land near Media, Pennsylvania, originally granted by William Penn."

I just noticed I forgot to link to the article.

narciso म्हणाले...

he blamed someone for 25 years, for his wife's accidents, he is a pathological sociopath, yet he's not the worst of the bunch,

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

The Irish!
A photographic documentary.

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

rhhardin said...
. . .
Its point ended with the free market, which made a slave contribute more to the economy working in his own interest than as a slave, so it died out.

What an interesting story!
In the real world, the slave labor of plantations undercut the small, family worked farm. Slavery drove out independent farmers, that was why why so many independent farmers opposed it.

Ralph L म्हणाले...

Wiki says his father eventually became a successful used car salesman. Perhaps we can blame his genes.

Bob Boyd म्हणाले...

Biden marched right up to Corn Pop, though.

That was one of the great dramas of the 60's.

Michael K म्हणाले...

That is why my nick name for Biden is IBM aka Irish Big Mouth.

MY father referred to that type Irishman as a "Flannel Mouthed Turkey."

He had a long list of terms for people he didn't like. Like "Dirty Harry," he hated them all equally. Life long Democrat.

John henry म्हणाले...

SloJo shamelessly used his son Beau to tug at our heartstrings. He shamelessly used the fatal accident (with a NON drunk driver) that killed his first wife to tug at our heartstrings.

Now he is doing the same thing with Hunter, though with much less justification.

Joe Biden Posts Emotional Tweet on Hunter: “Republicans Have Savaged My Only Surviving Son”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/joe-biden-emotional-tweet-on-hunter-republicans-have-savaged-my-only-surviving-son/

The man is shameless.


Re the emphasis on Non-drunk driver, Biden has always, falsely, claimed the other driver was drunk.
John Henry

narciso म्हणाले...

and then he made common cause with eastland and byrd, because reasons,

CWJ म्हणाले...

Modelo uses the Irish Catholic experience to sell Mexican beer.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

The same media that persecuted Sarah Palin relentlessly have given this clown decades of unearned gravitas.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

It takes sickening chutzpah to write an article about Biden "comforting" the father of a cop murdered in cold blood by a pro-Obama BLM activist who was being pumped up to hate cops by Obama's AG Eric Holder.

Holder was making inflammatory anti-cop pronouncements immediately before Ismaaiyl Brinsley assassinated officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Lieu. The two officers were among 94 assassinated in cold blood during Obama's administration, as Obama, Biden, and Holder pumped up racist, anti-white and anti-cop rhetoric. Five killed, nine injured in Dallas by a BLM activist, four killed in Oakland, CA. 94 assassinated cops.

At the funeral in Dallas, Obama lectured the families of the dead about Jim Crow laws and racism in the police force. He compared the dead police to two street thugs who were killed by cops while committing crimes. He praised the BLM movement, at a funeral for victims of BLM.

Now Biden is pimping another assassinated cop's death. Biden introduced Obama at the horrific Dallas funeral. White cops were singled out by the killer, right after Obama had condemned white cops from the White House. Then he and Biden hijacked their funeral. These people are sick.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

What pisses me off the most about Joe Biden is that he tipped off the Negroes about white America's plan to reenslave them. Race traitor!

rcocean म्हणाले...

Joe Biden identifies himself as a JFK Irish Catholic. Except, how many other people do? I never think of Biden as "Irish" unless he talks about it. As for Civil Rights, the largest Slave Holder in SC was an Irish Catholic, who later either became Governor or had a son that did so. Also an Irish Catholic slaveholder (MD) signed the Constitution.

As shown by his stolen Kinnock speech, Biden always tried to present himself as some sort of oppressed working man who rose through sheer will power up into the upper classes, but he actually just another suburban middle class guy, with a family who made a better than average $$.

Narr म्हणाले...

Jupiter, it ain't us whites, just them Republicans! And Libertarians, it goes without saying.

That Kennedy Kamelot Kult was pretty big among RC here, who are mostly Irish. It still has a hold among some of the older folks like my late mother-in-law and her cronies.

Narr
Trump will eat SloJo alive

rcocean म्हणाले...

Ben Cremer is Jewish and it looks like he didn't know much about Irish Catholics. I know the Church was sympathetic to Civil Rights in the 60's, but Irish Catholics were on both sides of the issue. JFK despised MLK, and Nixon and JFK had almost identical Civil Rights platforms in 1960. People forget that in 1960, LBJ was from the Segregationist Texas, and thought to be at best neutral on the issue. Which is why JFK won 8 out of 11 Southern States. Nixon won Tennessee, Florida (not really a southern state at this point), and VA.

mccullough म्हणाले...

Biden is erstwhile Irish.

A genuine mick would use “No Blarney” not mullarkey

rcocean म्हणाले...

Its humorous the way, through sheer propaganda, JFK and RFK were retroconned into great supporters of Civil Rights. One minute they're wire tapping MLK, and the next they're Black peoples greatest champion! RFK suddenly discovered in 1968, that Black people needed a champion. Its always nice when your new found "Morality" also wins you a lot of votes.

rcocean म्हणाले...

RFK wrote as strange line just before the Oregon Primary in 68. He said he didn't think he'd so well in Oregon because it was full of white protestants. This struck me as odd, because I knew people from Oregon and never met anyone who was anti-Catholic. And then i realized i had misunderstood what RFK meant. RFK meant that Oregon wasn't full of Catholics who would vote for him just because he was Catholic.

JAORE म्हणाले...

Boy that Trump sure lies a lot....

Kevin म्हणाले...

"Impeach Him Again, Nancy!"

Maxine Waters: Why stop there?

Kevin म्हणाले...

The cultural impact of JFK cannot be overstated. I think there was a portrait or bust of JFK in every classroom, whether public or private school, I ever sat.

You should see what Bill Clinton left behind.

It wasn't a portrait, but there was usually a bust.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Don't we all know a person like Biden who basically lies about his biography relentlessly? When he told the story about Cornpop, I knew it was fabricated- didn't everyone else? Liz Warren does the same thing, but the difference, I think, is that Biden is like Costanza- he comes to believe the lies, but Warren knows she is lying.

NCMoss म्हणाले...

Old age and losing neurons at an alarming rate is making it nearly impossible for Biden to communicate in a meaningful way; don't people notice that?

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"Even when his handlers warned him to stop saying this because it was not true, he couldn’t help himself: 'Folks, when I started in public life, in the civil rights movement, we marched to change attitudes.'"

Yeah, Biden lied. He lied long ago. He lied in law school. He lied about law school. He plagiarized Neil Kinnock ads to lie about his background. And they say Trump makes stuff up.

"The plain fact, as [Biden’s biographer Jules] Witcover notes, is that 'he avoided street protest or anything else that smacked of civil disobedience.' He was a concerned observer"

How is this a "plain fact"? What made Biden "concerned," any more than anyone else? How is this concerned observer stuff not more BS to soften the implication of the big, repeated lie?

"So how could Biden imagine himself as the reincarnation of the Kennedys? Those two words: Irish Catholic. His claim to that legacy is not experiential or particularly ideological. It is ethnic and religious.

More BS. It wasn't ethnic or religious. It was political.

"Its underlying appeal was to the very thing that Biden would come to embody—'a sense of the depth of their pain' rooted in 'vivid memories of sad times.' This is what Biden chose when he defined himself as he has throughout his public career: 'I see myself as an Irish Catholic.' And this was indeed a choice."

WTF? Whoever thought of Slow Bloviating Joe as embodying the depth of anyone's pain? How is the "choice" not another crude fabrication?

What Biden embodies is that progs can't help themselves: even the way they acknowledge lies and fabrications is a lie.

Bay Area Guy म्हणाले...

1. Delaware was a slave state on the border, that joined the North. So, there was some schizophrenia there. Biden has a bit of that schizo -- except for his pal Corn Pop, he probably didn't care too much about the civil rights issues.

2. He did suffer an epic tragedy (car crash) when he got elected to the Senate as a young man --and he rode it all the way to becoming King of Delaware, and Vice President of the US. That's a great run! But he is not worthy of the Presidency -- he should declare victory and go home -- back to Delaware.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

I seem to recall that there were a few Micks in Boston who weren't real happy with certain aspects of the nation's plan for the Advancement of Colored People.

Tyrone Slothrop म्हणाले...

In 1863 Irish Catholics in New York City rioted against the draft for three days, murdering 120 blacks and burning down a black orphanage. Troops were hurriedly marched from the Gettysburg battlefield to put down the disturbance.

GingerBeer म्हणाले...

Ds won't be concerned until Biden announces his Cherokee heritage.

Darrell म्हणाले...

And the funny thing is, Biden isn't the worst of the Democrats--by far. Just a typical Democratic turd, actually.

narciso म्हणाले...

does it look like he has a clue about anything going on in his country much less ours?


https://www.theguardian.com/profile/fintan-o-toole

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Liz Warren does the same thing, but the difference, I think, is that Biden is like Costanza- he comes to believe the lies, but Warren knows she is lying.

I don’t think she does know she’s lying. I think she believes her own BS.

Wilbur म्हणाले...

@ rcocean: How do you figure Florida was not a southern state in 1960?