Joe Biden's a little like The Mouth That Roared -- he's very smart and articulate, yet you never know quite what's going to come out of his mouth next. He's among the second tier of Democrat presidential aspirants, and is probably really running for a vice-presidential slot on the ticket, along with Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson.

But he might not even be in the vice-presidential sweeps for long with statements like this, from an interview and article published today about Barack Obama in the New York Observer:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," he said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Is anyone else a little uncomfortable with how that sounds? One of the reasons I am intrigued by Obama is that he represents a move forward from the old-line civil rights black leadership (Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton), whose views, tactics, and style are way past the due date for a large segment of the black community.
That community is shifting (or wants to be able to shift) to the middle and upper classes. I'd put him in there with Harold Ford, Bill Cosby, and Juan Williams on the left, and on the conservative side Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. They're people who refuse to buy into the old stereotypes and the "blame whitey for everything" that the other black leaders still cling to.

But for Biden to say that Obama is the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy"? What's he implying? And compared to whom?

The equivalent for him would be to say of Hillary Clinton: "she has some good views, for a blond woman".

There are ways to say what I think he wanted to say about Barack Obama (i.e. with only two years in the Senate, Barack's too inexperienced) without giving him a backhanded borderline bigoted insult.

Who know, maybe Biden could still be Secretary of State under Clinton...