I think, if you listen to the actual recording, you get a different sense from the transcripts. There's a pause there between "American" and "who", as if Biden is trying to come up with more to say, rather than applying a subordinate adjectival phrase to "African-American". I don't like Biden and have no intention of voting for him, but what if he'd said it this way:

"I mean, you've got the first mainstream African-American. Here's a man who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." The first sentence is true as far as presidential candidates go: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson weren't really mainstream candidates. Carol Moseley-Braun might qualify, but Obama really does have an aura of mainstream credibility. The second sentence is also true: Obama is all of those things, and that's more than you can say about some of the other candidates like Brownback or Clinton.

I suspect this is much ado about a poorly-chosen set of words and not some Freudian revelation on Biden's part regarding his inner suspicions about brown people.

I'm sorry, but the first "mainstream" African-American? This means he acts and talks just like "us white guys". He's not one of those dangerous ones at all. It's something I heard ALL the time in Ohio.

It's not like Jesse Jackson is Dennis Rodman.

This horse broke down right out of the starting gate. This has got to be some sort of record.

You're right in that those were poorly chosen words. Poor enough to kick him out of the race.

This means he acts and talks just like "us white guys."

Which, by some arguments, is a good thing. One of the comments I've seen in the black press (if you consider Tavis Smiley part of "the black press") is that Obama, because he doesn't come from heritage that traces itself through the slave trade, also doesn't have the self-demeaning and self-defeating cultural baggage that seems to be a part of American black culture. Obama walks and talks like any other man and his level of melanin output is irrelevant to his competence. I'm much more amused about the brouhaha over his smoking habit.

When you denigrate a man because he "talks just like 'us white guys," what I'm hearing is that you'd rather he not talk as well as we. How dare he presume to the literature and language of King James, Shakespeare, and Lincoln!

"The arrogance! The insolence! I salute you." -- King Osric

"Articulate and nice and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy"? Even if Elf is correct (waving to an old acquaintance from CompuServe), those adjectives reveal the contrast between Biden's assumptions about the "mainstream" white-like candidate and the average Black candidate. Apparently Black people are inarticulate, nasty, stupid, dirty, and ugly, which is presumably why they're unelectable. See? No actual prejudice involved.

Of course, it's OK for white politicians to be any or all of those things, except ugly and unkempt. Everybody has to be handsome or pretty thise days, as well as well-groomed, although "dirty" has other meanings.

Articulate? Not even if you're President. The Bushes, father and son, are fumbling speakers even when they have good speechwriters, and they could afford the best. When they stray away from the script, disasters happen. Oh, and they're lily-white: Economically speaking, the Bush home ground of Connecticut is the most segregated state in the Union.

Nasty? How about Arlen Spector? Although his politics are actually relatively moderate for a Republican, he's repeatedly shown himself to be an opportunistic hyena who'll savage the weak while licking the asses of the powerful. He one's of the most vindictive snarling junkyard dogs in politics, but he's a white Republican male. (Well, kind of an honorary white, because he's male and Republican and a native of Kansas, but he's Jewish.)

And as a former Philadelphian, I cherish the memory of the local virago and power broker Marge Tartaglione, who once said in City Council debate, ”Are you finished? Are you finished? Then wipe yourself.” Please note that I don't agree with the woman's politics. Mama Soprano was a toned-down version of Marge. But she was and is a very powerful politician who never mastered the concept of "nice."

Stupid? Two words: Dan Quayle. Two more: Joe Biden. He has a real talent for shooting himself in the foot.

Dirty? Not sure if we're talking about personal hygiene, sexual behavior, or basic honesty, but I suspect personal hygiene is out; there may be one or two politicians who don't bother gargling with Lavoris, but I doubt it. On the other hand, the list of sex scandals in American politics does not start and end with Bill Clinton. And scandals about dirty tricks, lying politicians, government graft, secret wars, and rampant cronyism are the subject of multiple monographs and academic encyclopedias.

But when a Black man runs for President, well, he better be "articulate and nice and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," in contrast to the usual Black orators like Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson. Oops. They were memorably powerful, poetic, coherent speakers; highly intelligent; virtuous in most matters except possibly sex (where many of us fall); well-groomed and handsome.

I suppose the Honorable Senator must be thinking of, you know, the others. Like homeless people, who tend to mumble and rave, don't wash too often, and don't seem especially bright or pleasant and cheery. Those are the Black people Joe Biden seems to take as his basis for comparison. And that right there is proof of racism.