It bothers me that Harris's attack on Biden was apparently coldly calculated in advance,

[SunSeeker]

228. He should have had a better response than defending state's rights.

And nothing Harris said needed correcting. She never said he "praised segregationists," so his denial that he did so did not correct Harris. He did in fact oppose federally-ordered school busing in the 1970s. In some communities which refused to desegregate, forced busing was necessary. Berkeley, CA finally did it voluntarily, but it took them 2 decades after Brown v. Board of Ed to do so, as Kamalapointed out. There were many communities in the South that never did. That is why the Dept. of Education had to order it in some instances. He did not explain why he opposed that. He simply said he favored local communities choosing to do busing, not the Department of Education ordering it. That is a standard states rights argument, which has an ugly history in the civil rights movement.

I am much more concerned about his argument for local (states rights) over federal mandates when in comes to civil rights protections. I am sure no one on his team would have recommended he make that argument if he had tried that out in debate prep.

Joe's a good guy. I choose to believe he sounded like he supported states rights because he just wasn't prepared for that issue. I am sure he will do more debate prep from now on.