Will Barack Obama condemn Joe Biden and Jimmy Hoffa for calling Republicans 'barbarians' and 'son of a bitches'

Barack Obama campaigning in Chicago last year. Photo: Toby Harnden

I enjoy political hardball as much as the next reporter. It’s barely concealed truth that campaign journalists, like the operatives we cover, love negative campaigning and revel in OTT insults and martial rhetoric. Even candidates often lapse into the language of “rip his throat out”, “tear his eyes out” or “drive a stake through her heart”.

It’s no secret either that many Republicans despise Democrats with a passion and vice versa. Just as British MPs hide their contempt of their opponents by referring to them as “the honourable member’, American politicians have their own, albeit less formal, ways of masking their true feelings with anodyne language for public consumption.
But the statements today by Jimmy Hoffa Jr and Vice President Joe Biden demean the presidency and, tactically speaking, are stupid own goals.
Hoffa, the Teamsters president, was warming up a Detroit crowd when he said: “President Obama, this is your army, and we are ready to march. Everybody here’s got a vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.”
Biden, whose mouth has long been a liability for Obama, was at an AFL-CIO rally when he told union members: “You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates…the other side has declared war on labour’s house.”
These comments were not nearly as bad as the statement last week by Congressman Andre Carson that members of the Tea Party want black people “hanging from a tree”. Let’s not get too sanctimonious here – they’re fairly common sentiments behind the scenes on both sides of the political divide.
The difference, of course, is that they were uttered publicly by someone chosen by the White House to introduce Obama and by the sitting vice-president at a time when Obama is calling for a bipartisan coming together to tackle the economy. To add to their foolishness, they follow on from Obama’s sensible call in January for “civility” in public discourse and for people to talk “in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”.
Hoffa’s comments were much worse than Biden’s, though the vice-president’s demeanour suggests he could be a liability on the campaign trail (I’d wager there’s a campaign plan for him to be used only in “rev up the base” type events). Put together, they are embarrassing enough to require an apology from Obama.
But will Obama have the political and moral courage to repudiate a powerful union boss and his own vice-president?
(POST UPDATED TO INCLUDE FULL HOFFA QUOTE AND LINK TO FULL VIDEO)
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Tags: Andre Carson, Barack Obama, Jimmy Hoffa, Joe Biden, tea party