
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 5, 2006
/ 12 Elul, 5766
Here comes Joe Bob Biden
By
Paul Greenberg
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
You may not think of Delaware as a Southern state but Joe Biden, its senior senator, has just redrawn the Mason-Dixon line. The way he describes Delaware, it sounds almost Southern. Why would he want to do that?
Maybe because he's one of the many presidential contenders and pretenders already lining up at the gate two years before Aught-Eight. And there are all those Southern presidential primaries to think about.
Asked how he would do down South against rivals from there, Joe (Bubba) Biden explained that actually he comes from up South: "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country." And old times there are not forgotten.
For a Democrat with presidential aspirations, to abandon the South would be the equivalent of abandoning all hope. The last three successful Democratic candidates for president Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson were from the South, if you make allowances and consider Texas a Southern state rather than an empire and anomaly all its own.
Sen. Biden's conversion to Southernness brings to mind a politician I used to know in Pine Bluff, Ark., which is a very Southern town indeed, who had the misfortune of being born in Illinois or Indiana or one of those Frost Belt states, and therefore felt the need to declare himself as Southern as his rival, if not more so. So he explained: "Just 'cause a cat has her kittens in the stove don't make 'em biscuits."
I forget whether said politico won or lost his race, but the line is worth remembering for any yankee trying to identify with the natives in these latitudes. It has the ring of both the Southern patois and universal folk wisdom or, as we say in these parts, mother wit.
By the time Oh-Eight rolls around, Sen. Biden could be dusting off his great-grandpappy's Confederate uniform, lengthening his vowels, laying on the Y'alls thick as molasses, and generally playing Old South to beat the band.
O Times, O Mores! There was a misbegotten era when upwardly mobile Southerners who wanted to get anywhere in national politics or in business or radio or almost any other field were seriously advised to get rid of their accent. Now the Southern lilt is chic, as in Dixie Chicks and country music on urban radio. So some Northerners are working hard to acquire a Southern background even if they have to invent one.
Not only is Delaware no longer a Northeastern state in "Biden's Official Atlas and Political Manual," but don't call Delaware liberal, either. To quote the senator: "My state is anything (but) a Northeast liberal state." Northeast Liberal State are apparently fightin' words these neo-conservative days, and the senator is quick to disown them, at least when campaigning in a southerly direction.
There's only one thing missing from the senator's new identity as a stalwart Son of the South: A true Southerner never proclaims himself one. Or needs to. He leaves that sort of thing to the embarrassing breed known as professional Southerners.
Whether he's a yankee or Southerner or something in between, whether borrowing somebody else's words or some other region's identity, Joe Biden remains Joe Biden. That is, someone who has a tendency to make others squirm. The more he talks, the more uncomfortable he makes his listeners. Maybe because he seems to have this unfortunate desire to be more chummy with folks than they might want to be with him. And now, it seems, he wants to be One of Us down here.
The senator might prove more popular in these latitudes if he just stayed himself, whatever that is. Look at how welcome Rudy Giuliani is in these parts, even though you can hear New York, in his every word.
The thing about Southerners well, one of the many things about Southerners is that we'd prefer folks to be what they are, and be comfortable in their own skin instead of molting regularly in accordance with political necessity.
The hardest thing in the world for politicians to do is just to be who they are. And it's not so easy for the rest of us, either. Some of the more pitiable among us tend to think of the self as a fungible commodity. All the fake alter egos that tempt us can be so distracting we may never find ourselves. Call it the Chameleon Syndrome. Its victims change personas as regularly as most people do shoes. And sometimes, especially when fashion takes precedence over comfort, the choices made can be painful.
Before the next presidential election, it's liable to get mighty crowded in the Southern Lineage Dept. It wouldn't surprise if, by the time of the Southern primaries, Hillary Clinton nee Rodham, who quietly dropped her maiden name here in Arkansas when it became a political burden, emerges as a demure Southern belle.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
Paul Greenberg Archives
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|