Joe Biden criticized for telling a 10 year old girl that she's "good looking" and grabbing her shoulders.

Former Vice President Joe Biden. Business Insider/Reuters.

2020 Democratic front runner has been criticized for telling a 10 year old girl that she was "...as bright as you are good-looking" and putting his hands on her, despite the #MeToo allegations against him. Business Insider. The incident happened at a 2020 campaign rally in Houston Texas after the little girl asked Biden a question about the divisions in the country. Biden had been criticized for not respecting women and touching them without their permission from both his right wing opponents and left wing critics. 

"I bet you're as bright as you are good looking"

Joe Biden spoke to a young girl during a @AFTunion town hall meeting in Texas pic.twitter.com/M77ORvdHcM

— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) May 29, 2019

My Comment:
The actual incident itself in this case wasn't too bad. If it had been done by someone else it wouldn't have been a big deal and even with it being Biden I don't think he did that much wrong. His comments were a bit out there but not over the top and it's not like he groped this young girl. There is way worse footage of Biden out there and this is mild in comparison. If he did it to an adult woman I doubt this would have even be noteworthy

That being said, what the hell was Joe Biden thinking? I am sure his handlers told him to avoid physical contact with women and girls until the #MeToo thing blew over, but he just blew it. He gave a perfectly good excuse for his right wing and left wing opponents to bring up his creepiness again. If I were him I'd probably adapt a "Mike Pence" rule where I was never in close contact with a woman or a girl, at least until the campaign is over one way or another. In 2019, fairly or unfairly, it's just bad optics to do what Biden did and I can't believe that he thought it would be a good idea

It almost makes me wonder if there is something wrong with Joe Biden. He is fairly old so maybe his memory isn't as good? It's also possible that he just doesn't realize in the moment how creepy he is when he touches people like this. He may have been reminded not to do this kind of thing anymore but he just forgets about it while he is doing it. Or, he simply does not care. Biden's old school and a touchy feeley kind of guy, perhaps he doesn't see anything wrong with what he is doing.

In the end though, I doubt that this incident will have much of an impact. Indeed, most of the media is trying to ignore it. Business Insider was one of the few outlets that I could find that wasn't explicitly right wing or far left. The major news outlets seem to be leaving this story alone.

Plus, I had a hell of a time even finding Business Insider as a source. Google News seems to be suppressing this story as I had to dig pretty far into their recommendations to even find this source. Most of the other stories about Biden were ones about his recent argument with President Trump over North Korea, and those were framed positively for the candidate.

I do think it would probably be a mistake for the Democrats to choose Joe Biden as their candidate. If he keeps doing this kind of thing eventually it will hurt him at the polls. With the Democrats facing an uphill battle for 2020, they don't need a candidate that is going to be perceived as harmful to women and children, no matter how fairly or unfairly that is.

I also have to say that I find it pretty amusing that Biden is getting #MeToo'ed. After the unsuccessful attempt to take down Donald Trump, and the successful attack against Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, it's nice to see Democrats hoisted by their own petard. It probably won't matter in the end, unless Biden really can't keep his hands to himself, but the Democrats did call something up that they can't easily put down.