Who's embarrassed by Joe Biden?

Upchurch said:
This may be the funniest comment of the thread.

Just to be clear, you're concerned about the media having a double standard when portraying actions of people from one party more harshly than those same actions from members of the other party, right? Do you detect any irony here?
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Irony? No. Contradiction? No. Perhaps you can explain. Biden has a very disturbing pattern of behavior. A one-off faux pas is simply nowhere near as bad.
 
Upchurch said:
Sure, but Cheney is the nearest corollary. Other politicians (except two in the last decade and a half or so) have less political stature and less individually important positions in the government. The media might treat a local state rep with less importance than the VP of the US based on their sheer difference in national relevance. The more differences you introduce between the people you are comparing, the less likely you can pin the difference on a single attribute, like political party.
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Except for the fact that both Cheney and Biden are old white men who have been VPs and have served in Congress, they are diametric opposites. Cheney is smart; Biden is dumb. Cheney is cold and ruthless; Biden is warm and sympathetic; Cheney is articulate; Biden is a gaffe machine. Cheney probably doesn't even like to touch himself; Biden will grab anything that's warm and too slow to get away. I would much rather have a beer with Biden, although I would keep my wife and daughter far away from him.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Irony? No. Contradiction? No. Perhaps you can explain. Biden has a very disturbing pattern of behavior. A one-off faux pas is simply nowhere near as bad.
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Okay, let me point it out to you:
sunmaster14 said:
I don't remember what the US media's reaction was. I do remember Bush being called a clown or worse in the European media. Bush's thing was a one-off, though, not a pattern of behavior. In addition, none of us are privy to Merkel's and Bush's relationship. They obviously had worked together on many previous occasions, and although Merkel's reaction indicated that Bush's intimacy was unwelcome, her reaction could just as easily have been due to surprise. For all we know, he had given her consensual shoulder massages before.
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You condemn the media for treating one political party harsher than another, but then you've gone out of your way to rationalize the inappropriate behavior of one politician, but you deny the same benefit of the doubt to another, all because of their party affiliation.

In other words, you have demonstrated the same bias you complained of (without evidence) in others.

Hm. Is that irony or just simply hypocrisy?
 
Ziggurat said:
Indeed. A department of justice study concluded that one in five congresswomen has been groped by Biden. It's an epidemic.
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Your blatantly partisan hackery is making you misread the statistic. What the study concluded was that Biden creepy touched twenty percent of each Congresswoman. He groped 100% of the total, but only 20% of each of their persons. Do try to be more fair to the man in future.
 
I'm increasingly reminded of Sybil Fawlty declaring 'I've heard of this, they call it the male menopause'.
 
Upchurch said:
Okay, let me point it out to you:

​
You condemn the media for treating one political party harsher than another, but then you've gone out of your way to rationalize the inappropriate behavior of one politician, but you deny the same benefit of the doubt to another, all because of their party affiliation.

In other words, you have demonstrated the same bias you complained of (without evidence) in others.

Hm. Is that irony or just simply hypocrisy?
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Why do you say that it is because of their party affiliation? I gave a perfectly valid reason. In Bush's case it was a one-time faux pas. For one event or one person, it's plausible that there exists some level of friendliness or intimacy of which the public is unaware. This is not the case for a pattern of sexual harrassment. There is no way that Biden was on intimate terms with that many women and girls, many of whom had only recently entered the public sphere.
 
Ziggurat said:
Indeed. A department of justice study concluded that one in five congresswomen has been groped by Biden. It's an epidemic.
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It is interesting that according to recent Department of Education guidelines, Biden would likely have been charged with sexual harassment and expelled from law school for his treatment of Stephanie Carter, assuming he had not already been expelled for plagiarism.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Why do you say that it is because of their party affiliation?
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Because there is no other reasonable explanation.

sunmaster14 said:
I gave a perfectly valid reason. In Bush's case it was a one-time faux pas. For one event or one person, it's plausible that there exists some level of friendliness or intimacy of which the public is unaware.
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Plausible, but not likely. And not a valid reason, more like unlikely speculation.

sunmaster14 said:
This is not the case for a pattern of sexual harrassment. There is no way that Biden was on intimate terms with that many women and girls, many of whom had only recently entered the public sphere.
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Pattern of sexual harrassment based on a few cherry-picked photographs with no context what-so-ever? (and a few that you'd have to stretch the imagination to even come up with a reason why they are inappropriate?)

The whole thing is pure conjecture. Your "reasons" are founded on on your political biases, which apparently is okay for you, but not for others.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Upchurch said:
Does anyone believe that the media's treatment of Bush's creepy touch was harsher than it's treatment of Biden's creepy touch?
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I don't remember what the US media's reaction was. [snip rationalization]
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Since you didn't explicitly answer the question, you don't know if the media's treatment of Bush's creepy touch was harsher than it's treatment of Biden's creepy touch?
 
Upchurch said:
Since you didn't explicitly answer the question, you don't know if the media's treatment of Bush's creepy touch was harsher than it's treatment of Biden's creepy touch?
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Looks like it was kind of a big deal when Bush gave Merkel the business.

In the US, meanwhile, a debate has broken out as to whether giving a back rub amounts to sexual harassment. Was the massage just a harmless bit of fun between two equally powerful leaders? Or was it a deeply unacceptable example of workplace sexual abuse? Several websites have dubbed Bush the "groper in chief", while the Democratic politician Martha Whetstone has expressed outrage. She told the San Francisco Chronicle: "You could use the clip as part of a teaching video on sexual harassment. You'd show people and tell them: 'Nobody in a position of authority should do something like that'."
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Personally, I think Biden's harassment of Stephanie Carter was much, much worse than what Bush did to Merkel, and he has been acting like that for a long time without nary a peep in the mainstream media (starting finally to get some peeps now though).
 
Upchurch said:
Of course, you do.
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"Of course"? Please tell me you're not trying to personalize the debate.

Why?
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Because it went on for much longer and was part of a documented pattern of such behavior?

Surely the proposition that Joe Biden behaves badly can be debated on its own merits. After all, it's not like anyone here owes Biden an partisan defense, right?

Right?
 
theprestige said:
"Of course"? Please tell me you're not trying to personalize the debate.
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Not personalizing. Just pointing out that he's doing the same thing he's accusing others of doing. It's much worse because it's Biden. If it had been Bush, he might have speculated that none of know what kind of relationship he and Stephanie Carter have. It could have been a consensual standing there with his hands on her shoulders.

theprestige said:
Because it went on for much longer and was part of a documented pattern of such behavior?
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Carter didn't shrug him off and "documented" is a bit of hyperbole.

theprestige said:
Surely the proposition that Joe Biden behaves badly can be debated on its own merits.
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It can be and I happen to agree that he's been creepy. I don't agree with sunmaster14's concerns of media favoritism.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Except for the fact that both Cheney and Biden are old white men who have been VPs and have served in Congress, they are diametric opposites. Cheney is smart; Biden is dumb. Cheney is cold and ruthless; Biden is warm and sympathetic; Cheney is articulate; Biden is a gaffe machine. Cheney probably doesn't even like to touch himself; Biden will grab anything that's warm and too slow to get away. I would much rather have a beer with Biden, although I would keep my wife and daughter far away from him.
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Cheney is responsible, perhaps even more than Bush, for a completely pointless war that cost more Americans their lives than have ever died from terrorism, the lives of nobody even knows how many Iraqis, trillions of dollars, and the goodwill of the world. Not to mention the fact that Saddam kept Islamists in line. Altogether, a monumental blunder. Like one of the worst decisions ever made by any American.

He also is responsible for CIA's illegal, disgusting, and ineffective torture regime which probably caused more damage to the US's reputation than was inflicted upon al Qaeda because of it.

I don't think any living person person has affected the world in such a negative way yet he says that he is proud of what he did and would do it again. Frankly, one of Obama's biggest failures is that Cheney isn't in prison. Not only does justice require it, but failing to deliver justice means that others are more likely to repeat the behavior as precedent will dictate that they won't be held personally responsible for their crimes.



I'll take Biden, no contest over the psychopath war criminal that is proud of the massive damage he is responsible for. Hell, I would take Sarah Palin and she's about the biggest joke in the GOP.
 
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Upchurch said:
And...?
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Did you even watch the video? Joe Biden's behavior has been out of line for a long time. It finally took a 28 second violation of another human being's personal space to get a liberal comedian to take note.


Of course, you do.

Why?
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Because it lasted less than two seconds, Bush and Merkel were friends, and Merkel felt powerful enough to essentially throw off the embrace of the most powerful man in the world without skipping a beat. She also smiled afterwards. ;) Stephanie Carter had to endure an excruciatingly prolonged and gross violation of her personal space because she was terrified of being rude to the man who is first in line to the most powerful office in the world.
 
Tony Stark said:
Cheney is responsible, perhaps even more than Bush, for a completely pointless war that cost more Americans their lives than have ever died from terrorism, the lives of nobody even knows how many Iraqis, trillions of dollars, and the goodwill of the world. Not to mention the fact that Saddam kept Islamists in line. Altogether, a monumental blunder. Like one of the worst decisions ever made by any American.

He also is responsible for CIA's illegal, disgusting, and ineffective torture regime which probably caused more damage to the US's reputation than was inflicted upon al Qaeda because of it.

I don't think any living person person has affected the world in such a negative way yet he says that he is proud of what he did and would do it again. Frankly, one of Obama's biggest failures is that Cheney isn't in prison. Not only does justice require it, but failing to deliver justice means that others are more likely to repeat the behavior as precedent will dictate that they won't be held personally responsible for their crimes.
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Does that mean you'd rather have a beer with Cheney?

I'll take Biden, no contest over the psychopath war criminal that is proud of the massive damage he is responsible for. Hell, I would take Sarah Palin and she's about the biggest joke in the GOP.
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Oh, well I agree, if you're talking about beer. I'd rather go hunting with Palin though, that's for sure. ;)
 
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