I suspect Joe Biden isn’t sorry at all….
Joe actually shouldn’t be…
He did what he HAD to do….. apologized Saturday for his recent remarks about his ability to work with segregationists during his time
at the time…
But it’s now….
So?
In order to show his ‘respect’ and to finally give the answer he SHOULD have?
He’s doing this now….
Former Vice President Joe Biden apologized Saturday for his recent remarks about his ability to work with segregationists during his time as a Senator.
The remarks are his first mea culpa over the comments this campaign cycle.
The White House hopeful maintained he had done the right thing by working across the aisle with people whose views he found “repugnant,” but apologized if he gave the impression he was praising the senators.
After spending weeks under fire for his decades-long history on race and civil rights, Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Saturday gave the most forceful defense yet of his record, emphasizing his time as vice president to Barack Obama, and did something he had resisted in the past — apologize for warmly reminiscing about his working relationships with Southern segregationists.
Mr. Biden, who previously had been defiant about those remarks and is often reluctant to issue apologies for his past positions, told a heavily African-American audience gathered in South Carolina, a crucial early-voting state, that he regretted those comments, which had incited backlash from many Democrats.
He also used his speech to draw contrasts with some of the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary who are to his left, and to defend his broader philosophy of working “within the system” to “get things done for the least among us,” even when that means dealing, he said, “with those who we find repugnant.”
“Now, was I wrong a few weeks ago to somehow give the impression to people that I was praising those men who I successfully opposed time and again?” he said. “Yes, I was. I regret it. I’m sorry for any of the pain and misconception I may have caused anybody.”
image….Meg Kinnard/AP Photo
Note…
This post was originally phoned in …
It has been edited up a bit….
Obviously, Joe Biden could have used less-volatile examples, e.g. working with John McCain or Orrin Hatch, but in his original remarks he wanted to use the most extreme examples of people he had to work with despite fundamental philosophical differences.
He apologized, the story says, if anyone was offended, but he didn’t apologize for working with Dixiecrats. And most of those who have commented here agree with his reasons. They probably wouldn’t be sufficient to work with an outright fascist such as Tom Metzger or David Duke, but Democrats today have to work with someone who often acts (and perhaps thinks) as they would.
I don’t know Kamala Harris’s political history since I left California in 1992, but people on the Left and minority politicians often have to deal with similar questions, such as do you cooperate at times with Louis Farrakhan, the Black Panthers or the old Communist Party.
For example, the Socialist Party as democrats long had an official policy against working with Communists. But this policy wasn’t always followed in the field by H.L. Mitchell when he was organizing the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in the South of the 1930’s, or by democratic Socialists like Michael Harrington working in the civil rights movement in California in the 1960’s with Communist leaders like Dorothy Healey.
Even in the 1970s, the Socialist Party/Social Democratic head offices in New York were unhappy with the Socialists in Berkeley (who were themselves emphatic anti-Communists) when they supported local Communists for the simple reason that they seemed clearly the best-qualified candidates for posts on the Berkeley School Board and the Berkeley Rent Control Board.
I’m sure if you looked hard enough?
You’d find Kamala Harris had to work with some despicable people and do something’s that hasn’t made California Blacks happy…
But is getting mileage because SHE threw down on Biden and he didn’t get it right…
This has nothing to do with race
it’s about a ‘gotcha’….
Biden has finally give Harris what she wanted….What the media taking heads wanted…
Sure it was.
That’s why I don’t care for these early “debates.” That’s all they are,”gotcha” spectacles, where the interlocutors are much more interested in things like this than anything else.
What did any of this have to do with measuring Joe Biden’s fitness to serve as President?Nothing. Indeed , all this was already known.
I know it will continue but it’s a helluva way to choose a President.
Look what it gave us last time.
Booker and Koubacur have welcomed Biden’s comments which on second glance are still not a apology for what he had done in the past but a apology on if people view his history as gloating and accepting the radical point of view of those he worked to legislation passed….
For those things he indicated he was sorry…
It was just an effort to lay this “story” to rest.
He, he, he….
Debates ARE here to stay and u know that….
Yes…
Harris’s point was actually BS…
And his response IS being used a judgment marker he did NOT do well with….
But he’s the leader…
They are jocking for the poll ratings that you say are unimportant, eh?
And Yes again….
He needs to put the story to rest….
Of course they are.
The”media,” whom you are always blabbering about ,has made them so.
They’re not really “debates” in any sense of the word.They are simply media spectacles.They are not meant to solicit any real discussion of issues ,such being inherently impossible with what ten or twelve people on a stage for an hour or so.The whole idea is ludicrous.
It’s what the media age has brought us though.
So get your popcorn out for the next “gotcha” session.
And we can look forward to you bitching some more about the “media” this and the “media that.
What does the “media” say to you?STFU and watch you clown! And you will.
Actually I only watch a wee bit of it….
But yea…
I agree it isn’t much of a true ‘debate’…
Maybe ‘ludicrous’ but gonna happen again the end of month with less people..
Gonna happen probably again in the fall….
Gonna happen a year from now most likely between Trump and Biden….
And?
Gonna count and be important to the media…and the people running….
If there was interest in a real “debate” between the two presidential candidates(not these gotcha spectacles in the nomination fight) We have the perfect template in the Kennedy -Nixon debates in 1960.
Put the two candidates in a tv studio (no audience,what is the purpose of a live audience other than to enhance the media spectacle?) with three or so questioners.The candidates would be seated and as a question is asked approach the podium give their answers with alternating rebuttals.
That would at least have the accoutrements of an actual debate.
That won’t happen though.There is no nterest in that.Instead these “debates” have become tv spectacles.
Interestingly though, except for the aforementioned Kennedy-Nixon debates,no other debates have been credited by non partisan observers(historians, political scientists ) as having had pivotal or ,in most cases ,even peripheral impact upon the actual election.
They have become simply institutionalized rituals that everyone goes through with the prime directive being “do no harm.”
Too bad.
I’ve had a particular academic interest in this topic for many years and I think that general election debates have often played a heavy part in the results.
I would certainly point to the 2000 debates as having worked to GWB’s advantage in what would be a very close election, but most prominently to the very late in the game 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter as a game changer.
And yes, everything is about television these days, and that largely started in 1960.
We all know the anecdotes that for the first debate, people who listened on radio thought Nixon easily won, but those who watched on television gave the edge to JFK.
(There were three other debates after the first one from Chicago that had much smaller audiences. By then, Nixon had gained some weight back and had better make-up and was deemed the winner.)
Yes I watched them ,even though I was only ten years old.
I still think that they were the closest thing to a real debate we have had.
That was the first election I ever worked in.
A local political boss paid me a dollar to stand out in front of a polling place with a Kennedy hat on.
I did it for six hours.Not bad money back in those days!
It might be interesting to go read the transcripts from those 1960 debates and see the obvious preference that the journalists had for JFK over Nixon in the way they presented their questions to them.
I don’t think they have had a major effect.
I was around back then and hardly anyone thought Carter was going to win do I don’t even know where you’re coming from.
As to the Bush/Gore debates?I don’t know anyone else who rated them as even particularly noteworthy.
One can say I guess that they “elevated” GWB somewhat as he was going against a sitting vp but, and as you yourself have pointed out, in a razor thin election like 2000 was, there are a host of reasons that one can assign to the outcome .The debates could be one of many ,but to assign that as The issue, no I don’t see how one can do that.
The 198o polls were showing a virtual tie before the final debate and Reagan went on to win by a landslide. The debate was largely credited for allowing people to feel comfortable with the idea of him as President.
The Bush/Gore debates were very noteworthy because it led to the perception that Gore, who had three different personalities in the three debates, was not genuine.
I think one can point to circumstances in all of the series of general election Presidential debates since 1960 and point to something important happening that contributed to the result. (Ironically, this is probably least true of 2012 and 2016 as the candidates believed to have “won” the debates, lost the election. Both Romney and Hilary needed one more debate closer to the election as to not have lost momentum.)
Now, the VP debates have had little consequence thus far.
i respect Jack’s view on the polls….
But the reality seems against his view…
Yeah I know about the “polls.”
Maybe the debate helped Reagan but anybody with knowledge of that era knows that the Iranian hostage issue and double digit inflation had much more to do with Regans victory than the debates.Carter didn’t even participate in one if memory serves correctly.
As for 2000 The only thing I remember from them was Al Gore walking around and sighing.They were no big deal.
Besides, the birth of “there you go again”, Reagan’s use of “are you better off than you were four years ago”, was a pretty important and enduring question for Presidential elections from that point on.
I would also say that in recent cycles, the SNL spoofs of the debates have had an impact too thru pop culture.
As for this cycle ,I think the primary debates for Democrats will wind up being significant as to whom gets nominated and who doesn’t, and that it might have already begun.
I’m surprised that no one here has yet mentioned the debates between (the generally-unknown) Gov. Jimmy Carter and Pres. Gerald Ford. I’m pretty sure that those were the first major-party debates since 1960.
Since the 1976 election results (unlike those of 1980) were very, very close in the popular vote (50.6% to 48.0%) and so close in the Electoral College (297-240) that Ford could have won by carrying only two more states (e.g. Texas, Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania) — it’s at least possible to argue that gaffes such as Ford’s classing Poland as part of the Free World had some significant effect on who won the Presidency.
And that (as others have alluded) is a large part of the problem: broadcasters and newspapers that treat an election as if it were a horse race or personality contest will pay far, far more attention to perceived errors (unforced or prompted by Gotcha questions, ) than to differences in policy — even if later history shows that the perceived error has some strong support in fact (e.g John McCain classing Russia as America’s chief adversary).
I appreciate your respect of my views on polls James;however I’m not sure you understand them.
My major point has been that early polls ,such as the ones we are seeing presently ,have a tilt toward better known candidates since lots of people aren’t paying much attention.
This isn’t a unique view of mine but one held by many political pros.
As the campaign progresses polls become more ubiquitous and are ,generally ,more reflective of the actual political lay of the land.
Still, I maintain a healthy skepticism regarding polls.I find them interesting ,particularly in the latter part of a campaign ,but are not as enamored of them as you seem to be.
Certainly ,since we are not facing the re-election of President Hillary Clinton ,as all the polls in 2016 said we would now be doing,I would think that a healthy skepticism is more called for that your almost daily attempts to somehow “prove”that my skepticism be unwarranted.
in fact i agree that current polls are NOT really strong voter predictors…
Some of the polling like Rasmussen are mostly useless….
Never the less?
They ARE defining the early campaign
…
America and most countries ARE somewhat poll driven…
A Quantitative world IS evolving ….
us oldtimers don’t completely accept this…
the younger generation knows nothing else
we ALL KNOW that minuscule poll numbers = No campaign money and no debate spot….
i’d say THAT is important?
And all this time I thought we were getting the views of a live reporter who was giving us his keen insights as a result of the personal observations of the spectacle.
How disheartening to discover that instead we are simply reading snippets of published reports that our intrepid moderator has purloined from myriad sources on the Internet.
Say it ain’t so!