Noemie Emery: Biden his time

Take, for example, his stance against school busing in the years after the civil rights bills were passed. The noble intention of busing had been to let blacks attend school in better-funded predominantly white districts. But over time, this gave way to court-ordered migration, in which all students were bused out of their districts until some bureaucrat’s concept of “balance” was reached. It was when white children were bused in to bad schools in crime-ridden areas that their parents started moving en masse into neighboring suburbs. This in turn made cities implode as they lost their tax bases. It also caused a seething resentment of liberal politics that did not recede for some time.

If Biden opposed this, he was wise to have done so. He was also wise to support the Clinton crime bill. Recall that there was an era before Rudy Giuliani saved New York City — back when few people anywhere felt safe on their streets.

Biden also assailed what he described as the “white man’s culture” of the Courts and the Congress, lamenting that he, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 1991, had not done enough to help Anita Hill in her epic battle against Judge Clarence Thomas. He added that in the 30 years or so after that dramatic debacle, “nothing had changed.” He must have forgotten that one of the reasons the Republicans fought so hard to get Thomas on the court was that he would have been (and did become) the first black Republican ever to sit on the court, and only the second black ever to sit on it, following the civil rights lawyer and legend Thurgood Marshall.

Instead of trying to uphold the Court’s “white man’s culture,” the Republicans had tried to dilute it. But then, in the eyes of the liberals, no conservative black male or female is ever quite black enough.

It is also untrue that “nothing has changed” for women or blacks in the 30 years since the hearing. Blacks and women now hold places of power and privilege at all levels of government — in the courts, in the House and the Senate, and in the White House. Biden, in spite of his advanced age, might remember that in 2008, we elected our first black president. And this time around, the white males running for president appear to be in the minority, at least at the moment. That certainly represents a change.

As for the Supreme Court, if Biden lamented he hadn’t fought more for Hill, he must have really loved the hearings surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. No one will ever protest that the Democrats did not try hard enough. Mobs stormed the Capitol, occupying offices, and sitting on floors. Constant outbursts disrupted the hearings. Thousands of death and rape threats were sent to the office of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who was correctly seen as the critical vote that would swing the whole matter.

When word came that Kavanaugh had been confirmed, protesters screamed, hurled themselves at the walls of the building, and attempted to break down the doors.

If this is Biden’s conception of how to “fight harder,” we can only thank Heaven that Obama served out both of his terms.