Not only did he not MEAN to say it, he did NOT say it. Obama can be articulate without the rest of african americans being inarticulate. It's not like we are only able to have one articulate black person in the world at a time.
I'm more worried about Bush calling him "attractive". :-)
Note that the problem with Biden wasn't that he called Obama a nice-looking guy, or articulate, or really even clean (that was just a distraction) -- it's that he said he was the FIRST African-American to exhibit those qualities.
Obama is not so much articulate as having good articulation.
People see and hear what they want to. Especially the likes of Al Sharkton and Jesse Jacksome. Hey, I like those names!
I've often been amused by people's proclivity to hear what they want and ignore the rest.
For years we all heard how Micael Jordan was so smart (and he is) and "articulate" (but he isn't). I always wondered why no one was offended by this statement of articulateness, but this mindset is all over the sports world.
For example, when announcers say that a basketball player has a high b-ball IQ but isn't a great athelete what they are refering to is his skin color---he's a slow white guy that makes up for being slow of foot by being "smart."
Conversely, the "exceptional athelete" moniker is now reserved ONLY for black guys in sports.
It is stereotypical racism either way, imo.
I guess these black leaders would prefer Prez Bush to call Obama an uneducated cretin.
If Bush says Obama is articulate people get upset. If he says Obama is inarticulate, people get upset. So I ask why do we even have the words "articulate" and "inarticulate" in the English language anymore? Should such words be labeled as hate speech?
Should the words "hate speech" be labeled as hate speech?
Indeed, President Bush might sometimes self-effacingly put himself into that category.