Hair caught fire in Democratic circles last week, and a statement from Joe Biden, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, was both the spark and accelerant. With one or two words, Biden strayed again out on the American third rail of race, but made a deeper point that eluded much of the media, most of the candidates, and nearly all of the national conversation.
A lot of our understanding of Biden’s statement at a New York City fundraiser on June 18 has been undercut by the way it’s been edited, to suit the breathless shorthand dictates of television news and tweet-era attention spans. Consider the full statement, in which Biden attempted to drive home the importance of being able to negotiate in a sometimes hostile environment of a divided Congress, and to express how he navigated those waters in the past ...
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