Add The Boston Globe editorial board to the list of liberals criticizing Vice President Joe Biden for telling an audience largely comprised of African-Americans last week that Republican efforts to loosen bank regulations mean “they’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
A Globe editorial speculated what would happen if Paul Ryan uttered those words. “Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president would be pilloried for racial insensitivity — and so would Romney. In the fight for civility and substance over pointless hyperbole, Biden may not be the worst offender. But he’s an offender nonetheless, and he should apologize.”
The Globe editors became the first at a left-leaning publication to criticize Biden.
They point out that he has made plenty of racially-oriented remarks that would draw strong left-wing criticism if they came from a Republican.
For example, when Biden was running for president against Barack Obama in 2008, he said of the man who would be his boss. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Biden apologized for that one.
“Liberals routinely dismiss Biden’s gaffes as the rhetorical excesses of an overly exuberant speaker — it’s Joe being Joe,” The Globe editorial states. “And there can be something appealing about a politician who throws caution and the script that goes with it to the winds. Yet when conservative speakers get overly exuberant and cross a rhetorical line, they are presumed racist or culturally insensitive, rather than refreshingly free-spirited. One standard should apply.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.