I assume that everyone is checked out on the basic story? Vice President Joe Biden Opened His Mouth at a majority-African American audience in Virginia and told that audience that if Romney got elected they were all going to end up in chains (he also told them that they were in North Carolina, but that kind of reality-based ambiguity is more or less baked into the cake that is Joe Biden). The White House has decided to pretend that they didn’t hear about it right away… sure you didn’t, Mister President – and that the whole thing is a ‘distraction,’ which is Beltway-speak for ‘a solid sucker punch right to the solar plexus.’ I’d say that Obama has gotten surprisingly adroit at sounding like a typical Dizzy City political… ah, ‘operative’… except that this would be unfair to the Chicago political machine. Mendacity and baldfaced lying are part of the Illinois Combine – and they’re good at it, thank you very much.

Well, former Governor Wilder isn’t too happy about the entire situation:

Transcript when I get it: the gist of it is, Wilder thinks that the comments themselves were “divisive” and “uncalled for,” not to mention a problem for the Obama administration. Wilder – who, by the way, is the grandson of slaves – doesn’t particularly consider jokes about slavery to be in good taste*, so even if you concede that Joe Biden didn’t mean to race-bait there (I am not conceding that, myself) Wilder still thinks that Biden should shut up.

With the subtext that Biden should be doing that shutting up in his private capacity as a Vice President who is not running for re-election. Note that Doug Wilder has been saying for a while now that Joe Biden should be dropped for some time now: also note that the Democrats apparently couldn’t find a national slot for the first-ever African-American elected governor… and of Virginia, at that. Funny how that always seems to happen to prominent African-American Democrats, isn’t it?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I am happy to concede that a person may legitimately take a particular position on something (without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with that position), as long as that person is consistent about it.

[UPDATE]: Transcript below.

CAVUTO: what did you make of what the vice president said?

WILDER: well, first of all it is decisive — devisive and uncalled for. i don’t think the obama administration needs that at this time. and as you know, have i not been the most — i have not been the most strong supporter of joe biden. and yet, we all know he is gaff prone. but when you make a statement saying they are going to put y’all back in chains which means i’m okay. it is not going to happen to me.

CAVUTO: that’s interesting.

WILDER: we’ll work through it, but y’all would be in chains. slavery is nothing to joke about. the history of this nation’s involvement with slavery is nothing to pass off in a joke. and so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt by saying, well, he didn’t mean all of it, and his uh poll gists are out there saying it. but you can’t continue to make gaff after gaff after gaff and believe it is going to be supportive of what you and the president are trying to do.