“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Biden said he was referring to a phrase used by his mother.
“My mother has an expression: clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack,” Biden said.”
Biden has made other questionable comments. In a June 2006 appearance in New Hampshire, the senator commented on the growth of the Indian-American population in Delaware by saying, “You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. Oh, I’m not joking.”
Two months later, responding to a question in an August interview on Fox News Sunday, Biden was asked how a “Northeast liberal” could compete against more conservative southern candidates.
“Better than everybody else. You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state,” Biden said.
He repeated the comment during a visit to South Carolina in December 2006 at an event before the Columbia Rotary Club, according to a story published in The State newspaper.
The State reported that Biden referred to Delaware as a “slave state that fought beside the North. That’s only because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.”
