For the most part, the media and the culture have given Vice-President Joe Biden a pass on his ebullient violation of a civil discourse taboo, on national TV and during an official ceremony, caught on a microphone for all to hear. That only makes the consequences of Biden’s inability to control his potty-mouth worse, though not for Biden. Biden has made so many embarrassing public utterances that he is treated by the media and much of the public as sort of a crazy uncle, someone we expect to do and say outrageous things because he can’t help himself (it stands as the smoking gun proof of the media’s bias against Sarah Palin that her verbal mistakes were—and are—pounced upon and used as evidence of her incompetence, while her Democratic counterpart’s career-long fondness for saying silly and outrageous things was —and is—excused.) But national leaders set cultural standards, and the shrugging off of Biden’s F-bomb permanently lowers our standards of civility as much as “Baby killer!” or “You lie!” So thanks, Joe, for making America just a little bit less gentile, just a little bit cruder. We knew you had it in you.
MSNBC Chris Matthews made himself the spokesman for the media’s gentle treatment of Biden, noting that his gaffes were always marked by a “lack of malice.” That, I suppose, now marks the ethical line for gutter language: as long as it’s “without malice,” it is acceptable in America to talk like Joe Biden.
“Thanks for the fucking B, teacher!”
“I love the fucking sweater grandma!”
“Good fucking ruling, Your Honor!”
“I loved the fucking sermon, Reverend!”
“Great to shake your fucking hand, Mr. President!”
Is that what we want? Is that OK? I suppose so; I don’t anticipate making a very good case that it isn’t to my son, who can now point to the Vice-President of the United States as a role model. Time was when a comic, Charles Rocket, was kicked off Saturday Night Live for saying Biden’s favorite word on a live broadcast at 11:30 PM, to an irreverent audience that couldn’t have cared less. Now, the #2 leader of the country uses the ultimate vulgarity, and it’s just cute. Not only cute, but cheered: now the fans of Obamacare are churning out, mass-producing and buying merchandise immortalizing Biden’s comment.
I know, I know: Joe thought he was in a private moment with the President—within microphone range, on national television. He was careless and dumb (once again), not intentionally crude. No, that’s wrong: he was careless, dumb, and intentionally crude, and he should be held responsible, because this taboo, once shattered without consequence, opens the floodgates. Just watch. It is never the culture’s villains, rebels and the targets for abuse, like Richard Nixon,Lenny Bruce, Janet Jackson or Dick Cheney, who lower the culture’s ethical standards. It’s the “good guys” like Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, who abuse their status by not exerting proper self-control over their public and private conduct.
Joe Biden has been making gaffes and hearing about it for decades, but does he check himself in public, make extra sure that he’s thought through what he’s going to say and when? He does not, and this is not cute, and not eccentric. This is arrogant and disrespectful of the public. Biden knows he can get away with being irresponsible, so he prefers to do that rather than project the dignity, civility and judgment that his high position requires…well, once required.
Am I being too hard on funny old Joe? I haven’t heard him apologize yet, have you? I haven’t heard any acknowledgment from the Vice President or the Obama Administration that Biden’s words were inappropriate for the time and place, though Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sent out a tweet that suggested that he too thought Joe was adorable. Joe Biden thinks what he did was just fine, and since the media and the culture isn’t saying otherwise, I guess it is.
Ironically,using the same word Biden used recently forced a New Jersey Congressman, Eric Mass, to resign from the House. Oh, well. No big fucking deal, right?
Ethics Alarms 
Great. So civility is out the window. Thanks, Mr. Vice President. Thanks, liberal media. Aside from Biden embarrassing himself daily with misstatements (“God rest her soul… oh that’s right, she’s still alive, isn’t she?”), to use the F-word in public is beyond the pale.
My son is 15 years old and I have used 10 of those years to teach him what the term “gentleman” means — that is, behavior and speech that fits the venue you happen to be in and the people you happen to be with. For example, language at home is not the same at the language you can use at school, church, a party, an extended family gathering, etc. I have used his own father (and myself) as examples: we have a home office and our own business and he has heard profanities at home since he was small, but he has NEVER heard such utterances from us in public, or at public events.
Similarly, belching in our own breakfast room is not problematic: doing the same at a restaurant or someone else’s home is totally inappropriate. When my son was 8 years old he spent a couple of days with a good friend (his parents were also good friends of ours…Old South). When our son was delivered home, the father said, “What have you done? Your son has perfect behavior. My kids are barbarians by contrast.”
Appropriate behavior based on venue and the people involved equals civility and gentlemanliness.
Now, thanks to Joe Biden (that moron) and the liberal apologists for him, do I have to worry about my son suddenly losing his own ingrained sense of civility? Thankfully, I think not. One: His IQ is about 60 points higher than Biden’s, and he knows it. Two. He has such little respect for politicians (and is impervious to peer pressure generally) that the behavior of one jackass will not affect him one whit.
However, adding the F-word to the “gentile” lexicon, and having it generally be winked at by the media, is a big step downward in national civility. Shame, shame. On Biden, but mostly on the media, who so shamelessly excused him. This was more than his usual gaffe: this was an insult to the American people. It matters not that he thought he was not on mike: what matters is that he said it AT ALL in a public forum.
This is too long, but one more point. This is also another step down the long road of destroying the wonderful, complex English language. How many other words could Biden have used (had he known any?). The F-word really means only one thing. There are thousands of meaningful words that can express the true meaning of that word. “This is an F-ing triumph.” Or some such. How about a “glorious” triumph? A history-making triumph? A legacy-making triumph? We could go on, ad nauseum. But what the F—, let’s just be lazy, lazy, and also crude, crude, crude.
And let’s damage civility in America and the English language at the same time, and let the liberal press enjoy themselves. Biden is a heartbeat away from the Presidency? God bless us every one.