In one of the most memorable moments of the Democratic Debates, Senator Booker halted VP Biden in his tracks when he tried to criticize Booker's record on criminal justice.
August 1, 2019

During the second night of debates, (as in the first) candidates had to answer questions about criminal justice reform. I thought for sure the biggest tangle on that topic would come between former V.P. Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. I was wrong. Instead he turned his fire onto Senator Cory Booker, former Mayor of Newark, N.J., and criticized his handling of the police department in his city. At the same time, he tried to position himself as a criminal justice reform trailblazer because he was "tryin to get rid of the crack cocaine disparity."

Let's just say it did not go well for Biden.

BOOKER: Uh, Mr. Vice-President, there's a saying in my community, "You're dippin into the Kool-aid, ya don't even know the flavor."

Now the crowd just roared, ROARED with laughter, and someone who was mic'd up was also heard laughing pretty hard. I'm gonna go ahead and guess it was either Don Lemon or Julián Castro. Maybe I'm being presumptuous...but it sounded like a man, and I can't quite see Jay Inslee or Jake Tapper getting that joke. (Here's the Urban Dictionary explanation of the phrase, for those, like me, who need it.) In other words, "You don't even KNOW what the hell you're talking about."

Booker continued.

BOOKER: You need to come to the city of Newark, and see the reforms that we've put into place. The New Jersey ACLU has said I embraced reform not just in action, but in deed. Sir, you are trying to shift the view from what you created. There are people right now in prison for life, for drug offenses, because you stood up and used that "tough on crime" phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected, but destroyed communities like mine. This isn't about the past, sir. This is about the present, right now.

Biden just looked so uncomfortable, being the white front-running former Senator/voter for the 1994 Crime Bill trying to call out the Black former mayor of Newark on his police force. And he should look uncomfortable. That is just not a dynamic you want if you're Biden.

How hard is it, how hard? is it to say, "I did the best I could, given what I knew, or thought I knew. The more information I got, the better I tried to make it. When I learned things I did hurt, I tried to fix it. And I'm sorry for the things I did that hurt people." How hard are those words?

I'll tell you. The bigger your ego, the less pure your motives then, the less pure your motives now, and the lower your level of intellectual honesty, the harder it is to say.

At least the tweets will be fun...and they've already begun.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon