At a New Hampshire campaign event on Sunday, Joe Biden jokingly referred to a young woman who asked about his Iowa loss as a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” Slate explains Biden took the line from a movie and has used it in jest before.
Conservatives, of course, are piling on him as though he was being serious. He wasn’t. Even so, it’s a bad joke that misfired, a classic Biden foot-in-mouth gaffe likely to haunt him for the rest of the campaign.
Those offended by it, and I don’t blame them, must consider the context. By “context” I mean the 2020 election. The difference between Biden and Trump is that when Trump says something like this he isn’t joking, he means it. Biden, for all his faults, isn’t mean in the way Trump is.
That Biden has a gaffe problem isn’t new. We’ve known that for years. I’d hoped he was over it. Maybe this should have a bearing on whether he becomes the Democratic nominee. But when the election comes, if the choice is between Biden and Trump, I’ll still take Biden.
Read story here and compare the videos below.
My wife, who leans to Bloomberg, says even if it was a joke “you can’t say stuff like this,” and she’s right. She called it a “brain fart,” said she can already see the Trump ads, and predicted it will take Biden out of the race. I told her, “If it doesn’t, it’ll come close.”