Dem. Sen. Joe Biden “implies” most African Americans not “articulate, bright, clean”

In a classic case of foot-in-mouth disease, Democrat Senator Joe Biden has declared Barack Obama the “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,”. From the NYT:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Bloggers are jumping all over it due to the fact that many think it implies some African Americans are not “articulate”, “bright” or “clean”. Whether you read into that or not, it has already been compared to the Macaca incident. I think Le Shawn Barber’s assessment “Barack Obama: The Clean Negro” is spot on:

Obama has been all over the press. Mainstream media has got him running for the presidency in 2008, and he’s the great black hope of white liberals everywhere. Last year — and in 2004 when he ran for the U.S. Senate — I speculated that white folks were fawning over Obama because he was one of those articulate Negroes. His publicist is also responsible for the hype, I’m sure. Obama recently wrote a second book about life. If I had the money, I’d hire his publicist.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been covering the Obama hype because, well, it’s hyped. There is nothing special about Obama, as far as I can see. He’s just another infanticide-supporting liberal. But white liberals are convinced he’s the next best thing to the Messiah. And I don’t want to be accused of “player hatin.’”

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