What do you do these days when you make a comment that causes the PC police to go after you? If you’re a politician, you try and spin it.
And sometimes the spin seems like it’s part of a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Joseph Biden got himself into trouble but he should copyright his office’s spin, since it could wind up on a satire sketch:
WHAT HE SAID:
Facing criticism, potential 2008 presidential candidate Joe Biden has been forced to explain his recent remark that “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
On a recent edition of the C-SPAN series “Road to the White House,” the Delaware senator is shown shaking hands with a man and boasting about his support among Indian-Americans.
“I’ve had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” Biden said.
HOW HIS OFFICE SPUN IT:
Biden got into hot water over those comments as they were spread instantaneously on the Internet and in sound bites (click on the link and you can watch the video). So how did his office respond? This way:
Biden’s office said the senator admires, supports and respects the Indian-American community – and also sought to explain his gaffe.
“The point Senator Biden was making is that there has been a vibrant Indian-American community in Delaware for decades. It has primarily been made up of engineers, scientists and physicians, but more recently, middle-class families are moving into Delaware and purchasing family-run small businesses,” said Margaret Aitken, a Biden spokeswoman.
“These families have greatly contributed to the vibrancy of the Indian-American community in Delaware and are making a significant contribution to the national economy as well,” she said.
Hey, we missed that in his original comment, which we personally thought was a ho-hum exaggeration but sure not a federal PC crime (in California there are lots of jokes about Osama bin Laden running a 7-Eleven in L.A.).
We never realized his original words were saying all of that. So we’ll read them again.
Oh…Wait: we’ll try and read it AGAIN……
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.