Why Joe Biden is disqualified The former vice president’s behavior was never acceptable and surely is not now. Click here.
Why Joe Biden is disqualified
Former Vice President Joe Biden is in the warm seat over reports of his making unwelcome physical contacts with women. The seat is not hot because even his perplexed accusers do not claim that his advances were sexual in nature. The criticisms have been relatively mild and demands for him to account for himself have been tepid. In laughable response, his non-denial mea culpa has been lukewarm as well.
One accuser, former congressional staffer Amy Lappos, reported that Mr. Biden placed his hands around her neck in 2009, pulled her face close to his and rubbed his nose against hers for 10 to 15 seconds. Nevada politician Lucy Flores accused him of grasping her from behind in 2014 as he planted his face into her hair, smelling it and kissing it. Other reports of similar unwanted touching also have surfaced.
Apologists for Mr. Biden have advanced one flawed argument after another as to why the women should stop critiquing what his defenders see as harmless behavior because Good Ol’ Joe’s bizarre acts are just “who he is.”
Poppycock. Most misogynous actors, from wolf-callers to sexual harassers to rapists, act out “who they are.”
On the continuum of physical bad behavior of men toward women that culminates in rape and begins perhaps with the held-too-long handshake, much mischief plays out in between. While it is true that all of the acts in the middle are not necessarily sexual, some are and others could be. Furthermore, even if acts are not sexual, they are not automatically immunized from being wrong.
In his folderol-laden reckoning by video, Mr. Biden reflected the fact that he has been given permission by the 6 a.m. television news arbiter of adult behavior, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and Biden partisans to downplay his friskiness toward his accusers. Mr. Biden and the pundits imply that the #MeToo movement has changed the world such that the friendly hug and similar gestures, previously acceptable, inexplicably no longer are. “I get it. I get it,” Mr. Biden disingenuously proclaimed, promising to change his behavior. None of the claims against Mr. Biden alleged mere friendly hugs.
The Biden gang sidesteps the weirdest things Mr. Biden did, aware of their being unacceptable in any era. Everything I know about inappropriate male attention toward women I did not learn in kindergarten, but along the rest of my journey I did.
Silent shock among us youngsters in music class resulted from the male teacher’s pinching the chest of a 13-year-old violinist classmate on the rare occasions when she produced a displeasing note.
When I was a college faculty member, the male chief librarian’s hand on the young woman professor’s knee in an office setting was understood by him, her and me to be what it was. When I approached middle age and listened to a complaint of a college co-ed saddened that her trusted male counselor’s slobbering mouth assaulted her ear during an end-of-semester office hug, we all knew what that meant. No contact was attempted or made with reproductive parts, but these acts of misconduct were wrong then, are wrong today and will be wrong for the ages.
This is a discussion of absolutes, not a comparative analysis. Let’s spare the “what abouts.” The actions resulting in the Biden brouhaha do not approach in severity the assaults about which sexual terrorist-in-chief Donald Trump brags, nor the attacks of which women have accused him. The former vice president qualifies as a sneaky dirty old man. The president publicly admits to being a dirty and felonious old man.
Even so, a man who dismisses the reports of Mr. Biden’s misconduct might accompany his lady to a public event and have a celebrated stranger begin touching and smelling her. Any woman apologist for Mr. Biden might experience the surprise at having her head thrust forward under similar circumstances, forcing her nose and her aggressor’s nose to play see-saw.
The forgiving souls on the political left accord the Pennsylvania-born, Delaware Democrat harmless goofy-Uncle-Joe status. They should know that no right-wing Republican attack dogs displayed the salacious interest in dragging out of Anita Hill prurient details of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas’s reported transgressions against her that then-Senate Judiciary chair Joe Biden did in 1991.
Some Biden sympathizers who are satisfied with his silly video in which no wrongdoing was acknowledged believe his casual performance is prelude to an announcement that he will run for president. But now, to the limited capabilities that derailed his previous presidential quests can be added this new round of disqualifiers. Good Ol’ Joe should keep his hands, nose and presidential aspirations to himself.
Robert Hill is a Pittsburgh-based communications consultant.
First Published April 8, 2019, 1:11pm
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