Critics of Joe Biden are falling over themselves in a rush to castigate the former vice president — and current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination — for his latest so-called “gaffe.” Some of them are even Democrats.
His sin: He waxed nostalgic, as many of us old men do, at a New York fundraiser last week about a time when the opposing parties went after each other tooth and nail, as Washington politicians do, but unlike with today’s polarized slugfests and gridlock, they also managed to find areas of compromise and pass serious legislation.
He might have gotten away with those heartwarming memories had he not chosen such a startling example of opposing sides coming together: He recalled working with two of the most openly racist Southern segregationists of the past century: the late Democratic Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia.
“He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son,’” Biden warmly said of Eastland, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden joined the body in 1973. And Talmadge, said Biden, was “one of the meanest guys I ever knew.”
Nevertheless, Biden continued, “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
That’s unfortunately true, as some of Biden’s Democratic opponents demonstrated by demanding his apology for insensitivity — an apology that Biden said they were not going to get.
As an African American who is old enough to remember some of the dirty work of the “segs,” as Congress’ stalwart segregationists were called in those bad old days, I understand the concerns.
But I also have to raise an important question: What if Biden knows what he’s doing?
In Washington, as journalist Michael Kinsley famously declared, a gaffe is when somebody tells the truth. Biden was telling an unfortunate truth about today’s political landscape, as his bellicose opponents immediately demonstrated.
An exception, by the way, might be his confusing use of “boy,” a condescension usually reserved in old Southern customs and tradition for black men of any age. In his past retellings, Biden has said, “He didn’t call me ‘senator,’ he called me ‘son.’” This time he may have misspoken.
Otherwise, Biden was departing in his own way from the almost slavish way that other Democratic candidates try to appease the politically correct etiquette of the party’s left-progressive base. Could Biden have been sending a message to moderates and swing voters?
If so, Biden’s “gaffe” might be remembered as groundbreaking in its reassurance to persuadable swing voters, who fear that the Democrats have been taken over by Black Lives Matter, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other far-left progressives in the way that President Donald Trump’s erratic populism has gripped the GOP.
Biden is appealing to a broad range of voters, particularly swing voters in the Midwest who provided Trump’s narrow margin of victory. Trump’s appeals almost exclusively to his MAGA base leaves a lot of other voters waiting to be persuaded.
In that spirit, just when Biden needed somebody at his back who wasn’t sticking a knife in it, more than a half-dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus stood by him. They included House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest-ranking African American in Congress. “I worked with Strom Thurmond all my life,” said Clyburn, name-dropping another infamous segregationist senator and fellow South Carolinian. “You don’t have to agree with people to work with them.”
Right. Misspeaking drove Biden to early departures from his two earlier presidential runs. But, let’s face it, President Trump, the single most unifying figure for Democrats, has drastically lowered the bar on permissible campaign language and behavior. With the Democratic debates about to begin, let the voters decide. That’s what primaries are for. Use them.
Clarence Page is a member of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board. Readers may send him email at cpage@chicagotribune.com.
