After Mocking Biden's Stutter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says She Wasn't Mocking Biden's Stutter, But Deleted Her Mocking Tweets
December 21, 2019
Sarah Huckabee Sanders of whom comedian Michelle Wolf said, “she burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye.” (DonkeyHotey)
By Laura Clawson
Sarah Huckabee Sanders found a way to get some attention with her Democratic debate commentary as she gets ready to run for office in Arkansas, but it’s not clear if it worked out well for her.
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During Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden, talking about the people he meets on the campaign trail, had mentioned “A little kid, he says 'I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I can't, I-I-I can't talk, w-w-what do I do?” Biden himself fought a stutter in his youth, and a recent article in The Atlantic discussed how his strategies for managing it still show up in his speech.
Sanders responded in classic Trumpist fashion, tweeting, “I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about.” After Twitter began coming down on her, Sanders started walking back:
That didn’t do the trick, and she subsequently deleted both tweets after Biden responded to her directly, tweeting, “I've worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it's my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It's called empathy. Look it up.” At that point, Sanders went with a fuller apology. “I actually didn't know that about you and that is commendable,” she wrote. “I apologize and should have made my point respectfully.”
But … if Biden himself didn’t stutter, it would have been okay to mock stuttering? Is that the implication here?
Here’s the question about whether this incident worked out for Sanders, though: Mocking people with disabilities is of course a time-honored Trumpy tactic—being vicious is the kind of thing the Trump supporters whose votes Sanders will need get really excited about. But apologizing? Even in flimsy, possibly dishonest fashion? That’s not popular with Trump voters.
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Posted with permission