Launching with a Lie

After months of speculation, Joe Biden finally launched his presidential campaign with a video. I was going to point out how well the multiple launches worked for Hillary Clinton (I'm going to release a video launching my campaign, I released a video, I'm going to hold an official launch event, I'm going on a listening tour, etc.) but after watching Biden's video I'm too mad at Biden.

The video starts out OK with a quote from the Declaration of Independence and an admission that Thomas Jefferson was flawed but still relevant. But then it switches tone to the neo-Nazi tiki torch parade that ended with a woman's death.

It was less than two years ago but people have already forgotten how that event happened. It began as a protest against removal of Confederate statues. Then a bunch of Nazi and Klan wannabies from all over the country decided to turn it into a white supremacist rally. They had their tiki torch parade with their anti-semitic chants about "Jews will not replace us". The next day they were supposed to have a second demonstration with a counter-demonstration across the square. But the police screwed up and herded both groups together then, when the inevitable violence broke out, they stood and watched because they were not in riot gear. A kid from Ohio panicked and drove his car into an empty car, driving it forward and killing the woman in front of it.

President Trump condemned the Nazis basement-dwellers and the Klansmen wannabies but he also said that their were good people on both sides. He was referring to the people who were simply protesting against the removal of the statues. They had held peaceful protests before and they were not protesting in favor of white supremacy.

At least twice President Trump explicitly condemned the white supremacists. Not that you'd know if from the news.

BIden says that he's running because of that incident. It sure took him long enough to react. There are early two dozen announced candidates ahead of him.

He also claims that that rally was unlike anything that's happened in his lifetime. He was born in 1943, during the Japanese interment program. He was a teenager before segregation ended in the South.

Biden is also ignoring the antisemitism that's gnawing away at his own party. The Republicans have condemned racist and antisemitic groups but the Democrats turn a blind eye.

I believe that Biden is serious when he says that Charlottesville upset him but he's guilty of the same thing until he condemns Farakan and Al Sharpton for saying things just as bad as the tiki marchers. If you're going to base your campaign on Trump being too friendly to racists then you have to call it out on your own side or you are a hypocrite.

This is not BIden's only example of hypocrisy. After the release of the Access Hollywood tape of Trump talking about liking to touch women Biden talked about taking Trump out back and beating him up. But Biden has his own issues with women. There are dozens of pictures and videos of women looking uncomfortable as he touches them and plays or sniffs their hair. He was also known for making female Secret Service agents uncomfortable by swimming naked.

Instead of telling us what he'll do for America, Biden launched with an attack ad. Suddenly Bernie doesn't look so bad.