Last week I posted a ‘quote of the day’ by Rebecca Traister. I thought the most significant point she made was that Joe Biden has hardly changed at all since, after Anita Hill’s appearance, he blocked corroborating witnesses from testifying at the Clarence Thomas hearings. In my view, Joe Biden is a throwback to a U.S. Senate when Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch co-sponsored legislation; when Joe Lieberman and John McCain were best buds; when the filibuster was rare and blue slips were respected by both parties; and when 100% of Senate Republicans would not have given Mitch McConnell a pass when he blocked a hearing for Merrick Garland.

I cross posted the Traister quote of the day on another website, which generated a number of comments, virtually all of which focused on Biden’s well-known habit of hugging, touching, and kissing women whom he doesn’t know. So I’m revisiting this issue.

Biden’s handling of the Thomas hearings is more significant, especially since he has never acknowledged a mistake. Plus, he continues to act – to this day – as though somehow, someway we can bring back the good old days of comity and bipartisanship to American politics.

First, let’s look back at the hearings, which Anita Hill, and 4 women in the House and 1 in the Senate (circa 1991) spoke about with the Washington Post in 2017. The Post describes then-Members of Congress and the Senate as “all allies of Hill during her historic appearance at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.”

Pat Schroeder: “As I recall, a group of us walked in, and you know how you can do the one-minute speeches on the floor? So we each got up and we’re doing them. And that then inspired us to go over to see the wonderful Senate, because they were having lunch as they always do on Tuesday. So we marched over there to go see them, because we were dumbfounded.” . . .

Barbara Mikulski: “I’m the only Democratic woman in the Senate. I didn’t know they were marching over. There’s George Mitchell, our Democratic leader, and somebody hands him a note and he says there are congresswomen outside. They want to speak. I said let them in. Others were saying okay.” . . .

Later Schroeder and Louise Slaughter called on Joe Biden. Slaughter: “We went to see Biden, because we were so frustrated by it. And he literally kind of pointed his finger and said, you don’t understand how important one’s word was in the Senate, that he had given his word to [Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomas’s chief sponsor] in the men’s gym that this would be a very quick hearing, and he had to get it out before Columbus Day.”

Biden was a man of his word. He respected Republican Senators as colleagues. He hasn’t changed much, as far as we can tell. Whether it is complimenting a Republican Congressman (when a Democrat was running to flip the seat in 2016) or praising Donald Trump’s Vice President as “a decent guy,” (though, yes, he walked it back, but) Biden apparently isn’t onboard with a more aggressive approach toward Republicans that many Democrats in 2019 are ready to embrace. He comes out of a kinder, gentler era, when Senatorial courtesies and bipartisan deference were ascendant.

None of this is disqualifying. It’s an intra-party disagreement. Maybe the right Democrat in the White House could get Mitch McConnell to be more reasonable. Maybe he (or she) could persuade a handful of Republicans to object to McConnell’s obstructionism. Recall the suggestions by serious people that Obama should have played more golf with Republicans. Or perhaps invited GOP opponents to the White House more frequently for bourbon and cigars (or whatever). Maybe then a few of them would have supported the ACA.

Or not.

Joe Biden is a prospective Democratic candidate for the nomination of his party; based on polling, he would be a front-runner (though I’m skeptical, having watched him seek the nomination twice before, that he is a likely winner). If he runs, this history (which isn’t dead, and may not be past), is something for Democratic voters to consider when deciding on their nominee.

(Image of Kumbaya moment at South Park from the web.)