An Interesting Take on Biden's Recent "Gaffe"

Russ Baker at Salon suggests that Joe Biden's recent comment that the Republicans "are going to put y’all back in chains” was not really a gaffe, but something else.  Baker notes that Obama did not actually disassociate himself from Biden's remarks but insisted that the comments were legitimate, and then argues:

There is no question that Joseph Biden has a long history of putting his foot in his mouth. But the mere expectation that everything he says is accidental or ill-conceived also puts him in a good position to put out material that actually helps Obama. And it is not as if Biden is completely incapable of memorizing his lines—or at least reading them off a teleprompter.

Maybe these most recent remarks were mistakes. But mistakes tend to come in debates, in response to questions, not in prepared speeches. And these seem to have been prepared remarks, a carefully calculated effort, as with all good speeches, to create some theatre—and to include at least one “hot” phrase that will get picked up by the electronic media. There is simply no point to having Biden speak to a live audience without considering how to multiply the ultimate audience by a factor of thousands. And no point to having him speak at all unless he has some zinger that will appeal to news producers and headline writers.

I think Baker's analysis is spot-on.  I have no doubt that Biden, in an attempt to refer to the GOP talking point that Obama needs to “unshackle” small businesses and the economy, was in fact trying to introduce a racial component into the argument, a "dog whistle" if you will.  It's kind of like when Newt Gingrich called Obama the "food stamp president" (wink wink nudge nudge) or when Rick Santorum famously said,"I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Well, that comment from Santorum really isn't a good example because he actually used the phrase "black people" (a no-no) instead of GOP-approved dog-whistle phrases like "welfare queen," "shared Anglo-Saxon heritage,” "voter fraud," or  "where's the birth certificate?"  Biden's big mistake?  He did not repeat the GOP talking point word for word but used the word "chain" instead of "shackle," thus reducing the effectiveness of the reference to GOP rhetoric.

But let's face it -- when it comes to dog-whistling, Joe Biden is no Newt Gingrich.