Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Joe Biden Shouldn't Be President"

[Demit]

75. Maybe if Biden hadn't garbled the story he's told before, people wouldn't be so confused.

Here's some background on the anecdote Biden was apparently trying to tell:

"After Biden’s remarks at the Wednesday night fundraiser, advisers played down his comments about Eastland as a garbled rendition of a familiar Biden anecdote. In particular they sought to excuse Biden for saying that Eastland didn’t refer to him as “boy” — an insult leveled at African American men — but as “son.”

“He just misspoke,” said one Biden adviser. “The way Biden usually tells the story, he says Eastland didn’t call him ‘senator,’ he called him ‘son,’ ” the adviser said. “Eastland called him ‘boy’ and ‘son’ also. This was Eastland’s way of diminishing young senators.”


You can't really blame people for trying to make sense of what a person is saying when the person himself mixes up what he meant.