Shawna Thomas on "Face the Nation": do older people, as a class, say things that sound like mistakes?

"Face the Nation" on August 11, 2019 had an interesting discussion of Joe Biden's "poor kids/white kids" flap.


MARGARET BRENNAN: Shawna, Joe Biden had a few missteps this week. Steve Scalise in this interview on our show hit him on a few of those things. But one of them was also he-- he seemed to say something to the effect of poor kids are just as good as white kids. The-- the right jumped on him for that.

SHAWNA THOMAS: Yeah. And, you know, here's the deal, Joe Biden is an older person, and sometimes he is going to-- he is going to say things that sound like mistakes. That is something that he and his campaign are going to have to deal with, because in the world we currently live in with, you know, social media, twenty-four-hour cable news, everything else, every little thing you do is going to be under a microscope. And Republicans are going to jump on him for that. I think it is clear what he was trying to say. I don't think he was trying to in any way in this type of commentary be racist or-- or anything like that. But this is a problem they are going to have to continue to deal with. And it's going to happen in debates. He-- this-- he's just going to have to figure out how to speak a little bit more carefully.



While rationalizing Biden's mistake on the basis of age, Shawna Thomas dealt an insult to older persons.

link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-transcript-of-face-the-nation-on-august-11-2019/

Biden, who plagiarized a paper while a 1L at Syracuse Law School, has been saying things that sound like mistakes for years. Please don't blame his age.

For completeness, Scalise's comment on Biden on "Face the Nation" was NOT about the "poor kids" statement of Biden:


REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE: Well, first of all, the President was very clear just the other day that there's no place for this. He spoke out against racism; he spoke out against these kind of attacks. And so to try to assign blame, you know, go look at some of these presidential candidates who made some of the most ridiculous statements. I mean Joe Biden just said that he was vice president when the Parkland kids--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE: --came and met with him, he wasn't vice president. You know, so some of these things that are being said are-- are beyond ridiculous. I-- I know they're running for President, and they might not like Donald Trump's views, but stop this-- this ridiculous assessment of blame to somebody other than the person who's responsible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE: And again, you know, just-- just-- you talk to-- to other people who were motivators--look at the Dayton shooter and what his motivations were. Is anybody asking about that? Anybody from the left--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.

REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE: --who he was inspired by. There's no right-- there's no place for it. The shooter's--

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you're--

REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE: --responsible. Let's try to identify these shooters in a better way which right now we're working on doing; let's put more emphasis there.



Brennan's ability to interview is about on the level of Captain Kangaroo.