Ack! It serves me right. By now I should know not to post while in a hurry to run out the door. While I was giving my bride a lift downtown, my email box has overflowed with responses to my too hastily typed Biden post. First, some responses:

From a reader:

Jonah,
Isn’t there another possible reading of Biden’s comment that could be interpreted as offensive to Blacks? I mean, the fact that, in Biden’s estimatiion, Democrats have been able to somehow muster an “African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” is the stuff of “storybooks”? As if to say, “How were they able to pull off such an improbable feat?” That was my initial inference, and I’m not of the easily offended ilk.
BTW, Biden might add Alan Keyes to the list of the unwashed and uneducated.

And another:

Jonah,
Love your work, but justed wanted to make a quick correction:
If we’re going to be partisan, we should do it fairly. Biden said that Obama was “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Failing any one of those requirements would make any contender pale in comparison. All Biden is claiming is that Sharpton and Jackson are either filthy, ugly or dim-witted. Or any two of the three. Or possibly all three. But not necessarily all three.
But I wouldn’t expect someone who watches Top Chef to make that distinction :P
(Watch The Dresden Files)
A reader,

And another:

Based on you post, one must assume that, in your opinion, Jesse Jackson, Allen Keyes, and Al Sharpton were “Not Bright”, “Not Clean”, and/or “Not Nice Looking”. Would you care to elaborate on either your opinion, in this regard, or speculate on Sen. Biden’s intent. I don’t really see how this comment from the senator is excusable.

And another:

You started out right in your remarks concerning Biden. But then you ended with, “Biden is calling Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton filthy, ugly, and dim-witted.” And as a fan of yours, I think it’s wrong of you to jump to that conclusion.
Biden could easily have been saying Obama is simply the first mainstream African-American candidate to run for President on the Democrat side. And that Obama is also an “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
He might also think Jackson were articulate, bright, clean, and nice looking, but that they weren’t mainstream candidates. And they weren’t, by Democrat standards.
Think it over.

And another:

I actually assumed he meant to include the word “candidate.” That doesn’t change anything. Where does he get the word “clean”? And “articulate” is usually considered a racial code word, at least by the Left when a conservative uses it. If this were Trent Lott, he’d be resigning write now — “candidate” or not.