Joe Biden, Recalling ’68, Asks Audience to Imagine Obama’s Assassination
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
HANOVER, N.H. — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday took a series of unusual rhetorical detours at the end of a town-hall-style campaign event nominally dedicated to health care, speculating about how a political assassination of Barack Obama might have affected the country in 2008 and recalling that he was accused of being gay because of his support of women’s rights in the 1970s.
After speaking about the health care plan he introduced last month and taking a few questions, Mr. Biden grew most animated as he recalled the fraught political era of 1968, when he was in his final year of law school, and two of his political heroes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated within weeks of each other.
My senior semester they were both shot and killed,” Mr. Biden said. “Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would have happened in America?”
I think of where we are at the moment. You know, none of you men are old — women are old enough, but a couple of you guys are old enough to remember. I graduated in 1968. Everybody before me was, drop out, go to Haight-Ashbury, don’t trust anybody over 30, everybody not getting involved. I’m serious, I know no woman will shake their head and acknowledge it, but you guys know what I’m talking about. Right? But then what happened? Dr. Ki— I only have two political heroes. I have one hero who was my dad, but I have two political heroes were Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. My senior semester they were both shot and killed. Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would have happened in America?
“Things changed,” he continued. “You had over 40 kids shot at Kent State on a beautiful lawn by the National Guard.” The shooting in question, in May 1970 during a Vietnam War protest, in fact ended with four students shot dead and nine wounded.
Mr. Biden, 76, was making the point that events of the late 1960s and early ’70s raised his political awareness and propelled him into a political career. He ran successfully for the United States Senate in 1972 at age 29.
A campaign spokesman said Mr. Biden had previously drawn an analogy between an Obama assassination and the political killings of 1968 when speaking to younger audiences not alive at the time.
In 2008, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton drew criticism when she referenced the political assassinations of 1968 as she defended staying in the long primary battle against Mr. Obama. She noted first that Bill Clinton had not wrapped up the nomination until June 1992, and then added, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”
At the event on Friday, Mr. Biden also recalled his early support for women’s rights, including the Equal Rights Amendment, and how he was he was sneered at for being on the edge of social change. He said critics had said, “Well, you know why Biden is for the E.R.A., he’s probably gay.”
But here’s the deal. An entire generation was energized. We finally finished the Voting Rights Act. We finally got the Civil Rights Act back on the road. We finally were in a position where we started to begin the women’s movement, and began to treat women — I remember because I was such a big supporter of the E.R.A in 1972, quote — to show you how things have changed, thank God — “Well, you know why Biden is for the E.R.A., he’s probably gay.” Not a joke.
Mr. Biden, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, compared his political awakening in his 20s to the present moment, asking how many members of the audience, on the campus of Dartmouth College, were high school or college students.
About 40 hands went up in the audience of several hundred.
“Unless I’m mistaken, Donald Trump did for your generation what the loss of two of my heroes did for mine,” he told the students, adding, “What they did was make you realize, my God, we’re in trouble.”
Mr. Biden’s walk-off line was a mic drop. Wondering if anyone two years ago would have believed a movie about the Trump administration so far, he invoked Mr. Trump calling himself “the chosen one” while speaking to reporters outside the White House this week.
“I am the savior,” Mr. Biden intoned, paraphrasing the president.
“I mean, come on, man,” Mr. Biden said. “I mean. Anyway. Good night, folks.”
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And this is the democrats front runner. The sad part is as demented as he is he is the most sane of the other candidates and their platform of free shit for everyone.
Maybe he was angling for the conservative vote by just saying out loud what so many of them had been wishing for over the last decade...
“Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would have happened in America?”
"What do you think we'd been praying for?!"... Thank goodness their God either didn't listen or, more likely, doesn't exist.
Funny that I've never heard a conservative say that but here you are with them same ideas. I'm not religious but it's obvious some people need god in there life. SMH
Four people were killed, nine injured. Obama was born in '61 - who would want to assassinate a 7 year old in South Asia???
It is apparent to me that Biden wants to get voters angry so they will vote for him. That's fine, but it clearly doesn't matter if they have a genuine reason to be angry because he can always make one up, and the more outrageous, the better.
In 2012, he told a mostly black audience that Republicans were going to put them back in chains. Not only was this not true, but it implied that the people in the room had once been "in chains" (i.e. slaves, I suppose) themselves. Therefore, they had even more reason to be angry and vote with Biden.
Now, he wants voters to imagine something horrible like Obama being assassinated and use that emotion to cast a vote for his poor former VP. Doesn't it just tear at your heart? Barack Obama, the hope of a generation, brutally murdered, and there is his buddy Joe, left to carry away the body and try to rebuild a shattered country. Just like LBJ after Kennedy was shot.
He also wants this crowd to get angry about Kent State 50 years later. While that was a terrible thing, there is no reason to bring it up now, other than to get the crowd angry. And as bad as that massacre was, he makes it worse by inflating the already sufficiently bad numbers.
No, Joe, 13 kids were shot, with four of them dying. That's terrible enough, but it wasn't "over 40."
And as if this weren't enough, he manages to tie it all to Trump.
Now what is that supposed to mean? Is Joe putting Trump in the role of shooting MLK and students at Kent State? Is he trying to make voters think that Trump is having modern day heroes executed? Is his audience supposed to think of Trump as a murderer as they head out to vote? Sure seems that way.
This is a pretty disgusting way to get elected.
Biden is as dishonest and divisive as they come but since he's a liberal who plays up the "aw shucks, I'm just middle class Joe" angle, he gets a pass from the same people who claim Trump is "lying" for stating actual, provable facts.
All you need to know about Biden is that he was willing to lie about a drunk driver killing his family for political gain.
Wait and we are giving a pass to a President who says "he is the chosen one". Do you realize that is straight out of the Stephen King novel, "The Dead Zone". That didn't end well.
First, the story is about Biden, not Trump. But second, there's kind of a big difference between saying stuff like "chosen one" and murdering people.
No, the story is about stupid things said from Biden, as if Biden is the only one saying stupid things. And 4 kids were murdered at Kent State, so what Biden said was a gaff but not totally wrong.
Deep fake.
Well, at least he is not grabbing my pussy.
So using photos of NT members in poorly cut and paste anti-Democrat memes is now acceptable? Really?
Can we post memes with other members avatars being fornicated from behind by Trump?
I'm OK with it. It's an obvious joke and i have broad shoulders.
While I understand how magnanimous you are, I was more worried about the precedent allowing such a thing might set. While the "Biden rubbing your shoulders" may not be offensive to you, using other NT avatars and likenesses in politically motivated memes seems like a bit of a slippery slope.
Using actual photos of members faces on the forum should not be permitted. You are right.
So why mention Trump, since he is off topic from this story?
No way! There is nothing in this story that says - or even implies - that Biden is the only one saying stupid things. Why can't we just talk about Biden without deflecting to someone who is not a topic in the article?
Saying 5 instead of 4 would be a gaffe, an error. Saying "over 40" is a deliberate, sensational lie meant to inflame.
A girl can dream.
So because Trump is bad we settle for just a little bit better?
Yes, sadly. There used to be a time when that was not the case. I miss those days.
ANY of the top Dem contenders would be a far better president that Donald Trump. Any of them. Even the ones you call "far left" would be constrained by Congress, and they are ALL light years better than Trump as human beings.
Let's be serious.
What leftist? Stop imagining things.
You are supporting a pathological liar that is embarrassing our country every day and needs mental help. Just stop.
Serious? Please. Open borders, free health care to all immigrants, free education, and now the "green new deals". We can't afford any of them. None of them, including Biden, are even close to being near the center.
" Mr. Biden said. “Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee."
This is the democrats "Front Runner" ?
And the Democrats say Trump is the dumb one ?
Well I imagine that Bidden never would have been vice president ….
Joe forgot …………
No, he probably thinks he would have been president.
Joe was having a wishful thinking moment- forgetting all about Hillary Clinton- who would have been the nominee instead.
Joe "Forgets" quite a bit !