“I hope I am as clear as I can be. So in case I am not, let me repeat, we don’t go after people’s families, we don’t get them involved in the politics, it is not appropriate and it is not relevant. Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought it was somebody in the campaign that was involved in something like that they would be fired.”—Barack Obama, 9/1/08“I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there’s joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don’t you support stem cell research?”—Joe Biden, 9/9/08OK, at the time that Sen. Obama made his statement, I wrote, “Based on the way Sen. Obama has run his campaign so far, there’s no plausible reason to doubt his statement.” Let’s see if I can still say that in a day or two. Sen. Biden’s comment is clearly directed toward Sarah Palin, with her son Trig who has Down Syndrome, and is clearly intended to score a partisan political point; that would be in violation of Sen. Obama’s edict that “we don’t go after people’s families, we don’t get them involved in the politics, it is not appropriate and it is not relevant.” Clearly, Sen. Biden disagrees, and I think we can safely call him “somebody in the campaign.” Now, he’s not just an ordinary Joe in the campaign, and I’m not sure Sen. Obama actually can fire him—sure, he picked the guy, but the convention nominated him, and I really don’t know what the rules would be on booting him off the ticket now, or even if there are any; but still, if Sen. Obama is to be true to the principles he articulated, some sort of discipline should be in order, and a sincere public apology (i.e., not “I’m sorry if anyone was offended, because I wasn’t being offensive”) should be shortly forthcoming from Sen. Biden. I look forward to hearing it.HT: Jennifer Rubin
Perhaps it would make a difference if I saw this in context, but I don’t see this as going after Palin’s family. I’m not saying that to support Biden (I’m much more likely to vote for McCain/Palin). But his statement is not at all like comments about something Obama’s wife said, or Palin’s daughter did.
If this is going after anyone, it’s Sarah Palin. But the statement you quoted doesn’t even mention her, and while anyone following the campaign will realize that’s who Biden had in mind, it could as easily have been said about any Republican who has a child with a birth defect.
Going after them, no; but it’s definitely an attempt to make political hay out of them, which it seems to me is also something Sen. Obama ruled out of court (and rightly so).