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With Friends Like Joe Biden…

Poor Jews! Via Jon Chait, here’s our chummy, logorrheic vice president praising the tribe at a Jewish gathering: “I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a […]

Poor Jews! Via Jon Chait, here’s our chummy, logorrheic vice president praising the tribe at a Jewish gathering:

“I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”

“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.

“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

So: Joe Biden says that Jewish elites manipulated American culture into accepting gay marriage, and thank God for it.

Wow. The … inartfulness of this is just … wow. Chait comments:

The main problem here is that gay rights, unlike black civil rights, are politically controversial at the moment. Biden may find it “all to the good” that Jews have used their influence over popular culture to change societal attitudes toward homosexuality, but lots of people don’t find it good at all.

I bet I’m going to have to decline more comments on this thread than I approve, so if you plan on saying anything anti-Semitic, may as well save yourself the trouble of typing it out, because it ain’t getting onto this site. I post this because this is a pretty incredible gaffe.

[Via Andrew Sullivan.]

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