Alex Massie, who watched last night’s Democratic debate so you wouldn’t have to, awards Joe Biden Best Line honors for his quip that Rudy Giuliani “uses three words in a sentence: A noun, a verb, and 9/11.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez calls it “low, crass line” and thinks “it’s disturbing it got laughs.” But why is pointing out that a candidate continually harps on one event in his career more crass than said candidate repeatedly exploiting the deaths of nearly 3000 innocents for political gain?
UPDATE: I hasten to add, however, that the broader context of Biden’s remarks, that Giuliani “is genuinely not qualified to be president,” is absurd. Giuliani’s executive experience more than stacks up with Bill Clinton’s, Jimmy Carter’s, or John Kennedy’s — the last three Democratic presidents — at the time of their election. The population of New York City dwarfs that of Arkansas and Georgia combined and Kennedy never ran anything larger than a PT boat before getting elected.
UPDATE: Jay Tea notes that I omitted Lyndon Johnson from the list of Democratic presidents in the update above. So I did. Johnson had experience comparable to Biden’s — a long, distinguished career as a legislator — in addition to 1000-odd days as VP before Kennedy’s murder.
