It started when Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s two-term Vice President, declared he was running for the office…and former President Obama not endorse him or even say a positive word.
That had to hurt. It left Mr. Biden with little other than the palpably ridiculous claim that he asked Mr. Obama not to provide the endorsement, which I have never met anyone who believes.
Since then, it has become clear that Obama favors Elizabeth Warren (and maybe others) over Biden. So he’s not just steering clear of showing a preference, he’s made one. That had to hurt even more.
And now? Joe Biden, understandably, feels no need to take political hits to support the Obama presidency…as seen in the following excerpt from Bill Barrow’s article for the Associated Press, via PBS.com:
Going further than he ever has in expressing regret over Obama administration immigration policy, presidential candidate Joe Biden called it a “big mistake” to have deported hundreds of thousands of people without criminal records.
“We took far too long to get it right,” Biden said in a wide-ranging, sometimes contentious interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos. The former vice president later added: “I think it was a big mistake. Took too long to get it right.”
In written statements included as part of Biden’s proposed immigration overhaul, the campaign already had acknowledged “pain” surrounding deportations that occurred when he served as President Barack Obama’s vice president. But the candidate himself had not so clearly stated his personal regrets.
Well, there’s a little payback, wouldn’t you say? Now it’s Barack Obama who is getting poked hard in the ribs.
But what’s especially fascinating – and frankly, confusing – about the above admission is that it not only criticizes Obama, it criticizes Biden himself as well.
From a political perspective, I’m trying to figure out what possible good Biden’s comments provide for what remnants of the Biden campaign are left.
Biden is saying that he, as well as Obama, screwed up immigration for a long time – hardly a reason for supporting him.
He is saying that the latter part of the Obama administration “got it right”. Got what right? There were huge numbers of deportations during the second Obama-Biden term, and those pictures of “children in cages” were taken in 2014 – the middle of that term. This, it seems to me, flies in the face of what he is trying to communicate.
Then there is the issue of why anyone would think that someone who got it so wrong for so long would get it right the next time.
Bottom line: by attacking the Obama administration’s immigration policies, Joe Biden is attacking himself as well. And he is doing so to the Latino audience he is trying to generate support from.
Yikes. Who’s running this campaign?
