In setting up his comparison, the vice president explained to the audience that before the Violence Against Women Act that he championed was passed into law, “there was this attitude in our society of blaming the victim," according to a press pool account of the event.
“When a woman got raped, blame her because she was wearing a skirt too short, she looked the wrong way or she wasn't home in time to make the dinner,” Biden said.
“We've gotten by that,” he said. “But it's amazing how these Republicans, the right wing of this party – whose philosophy threw us into this God-awful hole we’re in, gave us the tremendous deficit we’ve inherited – that they’re now using, now attempting to use, the very economic condition they have created to blame the victim – whether it’s organized labor or ordinary middle-class working men and women. It's bizarre. It's bizarre.”
Nice to know our VP is leading the charge in this new civility, isn't it?
Oh yeah, let's see, this is the same guy who was supposed to be watchdogging the stimulus, and we have seen all the waste going on with that.
Needless to say, the GOP was not very happy:
"As much as Vice President Biden should retract this specific statement, he should apologize for comparing our country’s dismal economic situation to such horrid acts as violence against women,” said Joanna Burgos, spokeswoman for the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).
