Bill Cotterell: Biden should ditch being wishy-washy

President Joe Biden was handed a “Sister Souljah” moment in his State of the Union speech, but he blew it.

The 81-year-old chief executive was roundly praised for the vigor and clarity he showed in laying out his hopes for the nation. But when U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., heckled him with a challenge to speak about murder victim Laken Riley, Biden not only took the bait but bobbled it badly.

Holding a little lapel button bearing the slain nursing student’s name, Biden mangled it as “Lincoln” rather than “Laken.” And he referred to a Venezuelan immigrant accused of her murder as “an illegal.”

That mortified many of Biden’s fellow Democrats, who seem to think the feelings of people in the country illegally matter more than the safety of citizens. Democrats and liberals — pardon the redundancy — act like the first step in solving any problem is to find a comforting euphemism for it.

Thus, ex-cons are “returning citizens,” mothers-to-be are “pregnant people,” and millions of migrants are “undocumented.” The White House even tried calling them “newcomers” for a while, but somehow that didn’t catch on. Republicans do it, too, such as calling imprisoned Jan. 6 Capitol rioters “hostages,” even “patriots.”

Anyway, Biden’s ad-lib response to Greene’s taunt was a gaffe compounded by a botched recovery.

First, as soon as he said “an illegal,” he tried to ameliorate it with a bit of whataboutism, adding that there are a lot of home-grown criminals, too. Second, Biden spent a day or two apologizing and saying he meant no offense to the poor, desperate asylum-seekers streaming across the southwest border.

He probably didn’t mollify any progressives angry at him for saying “an illegal,” and he looked like a wuss for falling all over himself to fix it. Besides, “an illegal” was accurate, if insensitive, and most Americans, if they noticed the word, weren’t bothered by it.

Perhaps Democrats should consider why Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan are remembered as strong leaders. They didn’t weasel-word anything, and we knew where they stood.

Greene gave Biden what’s known as a “Sister Souljah moment” — when a candidate has a chance to go against party orthodoxy and look un-whipped. It dates back to 1992, when the rapper and activist Sister Souljah suggested a response to Black-on-Black crime might be a week in which white people would be killed. The Rev. Jesse Jackson then invited her to a convention of his Rainbow Coalition.

Then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, needing to distance himself from Jackson in the Democratic presidential race, also spoke at the convention and bluntly denounced the performer’s remarks. It wasn’t so much what Clinton said as it was his defiance of Democratic Party devotion to identity politics that made headlines.

Incidentally, the correct response to the Greene barb was not for Biden to reply in kind. An exasperated sigh and shrug, a rolling of the eyes and maybe a dismissive wave of the hand is how a president should deal with Greene and her ilk if they interrupt him.

Same goes for “the squad” on the Democratic side of the House chamber. But that’s not Joe Biden.

He could have said, “Yeah, OK, so I said, ‘an illegal’ instead of ‘undocumented.’ Get over it.”

That’s pretty much what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, calling Biden’s word choice “not a big deal” — even while Biden was backtracking.

Of course, the media commentators were aghast, or pretended to be. Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart pressed Biden to apologize, which he did.

Ex-President Donald Trump, of course, did just the opposite. He met with Riley’s family before a rally in Rome, Ga., and promised crowds the greatest mass deportation in history. The contrast between a chastened president, choosing his words fearfully, and the former president, who added “sh—hole countries” to the immigration dialogue, will be a memorable part of their 2024 race.

Despite polls showing border enforcement ranking high in public concern, Democrats don’t seem to grasp how important it is to voters. And as Biden’s hasty retreat indicated, when he really must talk about it, he can’t decide whether to be wishy or washy.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He writes a weekly column for The News Service of Florida and City & State Florida. He can be reached at bcotterell@govexec.com. 

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Send letters to the editor (up to 200 words) or Your Turn columns (about 500 words) to letters@tallahassee.com. Please include your address for verification purposes only, and if you send a Your Turn, also include a photo and 1-2 line bio of yourself. You can also submit anonymous Zing!s at Tallahassee.com/Zing. Submissions are published on a space-available basis. All submissions may be edited for content, clarity and length, and may also be published by any part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bill Cotterell: Biden should ditch being wishy-washy