The Chris Moeller Archives

Biden's contempt

My negative feelings towards Paul Ryan are very visceral. Of course his politics are the worst-- intellectually dishonest and mean, but part of it too, I think, is combining that with his age. He's really the first prominent candidate for national political office of my generation, and I'm starting to understand why Bill Clinton was so vehemently disliked so early on by the "boomers" in the Republican party.

I look at Ryan and see every fratboy abercrombie d-bag in the Iowa State College Republicans circa 1996, howling at the imaginary shadows of affirmative action and "femi-nazis," altar boys at the feet of Rush Limbaugh. That's why, even though Joe Biden can be distasteful at times, it was so much fun to watch him Thursday night treating Ryan, and in particular, his comments on entitlements and Iran, with the derision they deserved.

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams described the scene best, "Biden’s laugh is utterly brutal because it takes Paul Ryan, the marathon-exaggerating, dumbbell-curling, wannabe manly man and does the absolute worst thing imaginable to a guy like that. It points at him and makes him a fool. It says, “Yeah, tell me another one, Backwards Baseball Cap.” It’s at once furious and dismissive. It understands that at the heart of humor there’s a howl of pain. That why it’s the favorite weapon of choice of the trod-upon. And it says to the American voters the most undermining thing imaginable: 'You see this fella next to me? What a goddamn joke.'"

posted by CM @ 7:04 PM