Biden's Zingers: Weighing the Ones That Matter and Those That Don't

Feb. 2, 2007— -- Joe Biden, knowing everything he knows today, would probably not make the same comments about his friend, colleague and presidential primary competitor Barack Obama that he made the other day.

Language is important. Words are important, and Sen. Biden knows he has some work to do if he wants to make it to the White House.

But this hyperventilation about what Biden said as opposed to what Biden meant is reaching a level of absurdity that is making Biden's critics look small and more concerned with veneer than substance.

Eugene Robinson's piece today, "An Inarticulate Kickoff," cynically piles on, when the article could have done much more.

Joe Biden's fumble here was that he was trying to compliment a competitor -- and should have said perhaps "He's Hot" or "He's Da Bomb."

There are lots of ways that Biden might have said that Barack Obama is a breakthrough kind of personality -- and yes, he's a breakthrough personality in the African-American community that surpasses (perhaps) other African-American political superstars Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

But as a friendly counter to Eugene Robinson, it's George Bush's "inarticulateness" that worries me, along with George Bush's lack of curiosity and intellectual laziness about important policy matters. Don't you think that when inarticulateness is measured that the real benchmark is the composite of intellectual engagement with the country's real problems.

Biden can talk a lot. He knows it. I like the unpackaged honesty of Biden's barrages -- but this guy is no racist and doesn't harbor the views that others have been alleging he does. Joe Biden wanted to say "Barack is hot."

But who knows what kind of press that would have generated. … It might have gotten Biden a good cover story on the Washington Blade.

Biden has told us what he meant to say -- and he's apologized. Obama has reported back that he knows what Biden meant to say and appreciates Biden's sentiments.

I think we ought to now begin asking who has the intellectual capacity to wrestle down tomorrow's problems. On that scale --

Steve Clemons is senior fellow and director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog The Washington Note.