Last week, former vice president and potential 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden called current Vice President Mike Pence a “decent guy.”
Biden was giving a speech in Omaha, Nebraska when he called the vice president a “decent guy” as he was criticizing the Trump administration for what he perceives to be international shortcomings.
Biden’s comments were followed by immediate rebukes from the Left. Liberal activist Cynthia Nixon urged Biden to retract his comments because Pence is, in her words, “America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader.”
Biden reacted by acquiescing to her demand.
This is yet another sad commentary on the depths to which our political dialogue has devolved.
Why should Joe Biden not be able to call Mike Pence, a person he clearly knows personally, a decent man without getting inundated with attacks from the Left?
Perhaps some on the right would get upset if a prominent Republican were to call a high-ranking Democrat (such as Chuck Schumer) a decent person. But I would hope that such a statement would never be questioned, especially if two people know each other.
Then, there is Biden’s reaction consider. Upon receiving criticism, he immediately ran from his original comment about Pence.
Did he really never believe Pence was a “decent guy,” or is he now making a political statement that he really does not believe to be the truth? In either case, as someone who does not agree with many of the policy positions held by the former vice president, I would have appreciated him affirming that Mike Pence is a decent human being.
This Biden/Pence back-in-forth stands in contrast to something we saw last week between two prominent members of the House of Representatives, also in opposing parties.
During the House Oversight Committee’s questioning of Michael Cohen as part of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion during the 2016 election, the chairman of the committee, Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and one of the leading Republicans on the committee, Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, had the following exchange after one of the Democrats on the committee accused Meadows of racism.
This was a powerful moment between two individuals who are clearly real-life friends. Cummings is a Democrat and a civil rights icon, yet he would not allow a false charge of racism to be pinned on his Republican friend.
Elijah Cummings got it right in defending his friend, despite political affiliation.
But Biden, after calling Pence a decent person initially, got it wrong by running from his initial remarks.
