Anita Hill deserves a real apology. Why couldn’t Joe Biden offer one? | Moira Donegan
His failure to genuinely say sorry makes Biden not seem like a responsible, self-aware man who has learned from his mistakes and wants to make amends
Joe Biden’s long-awaited presidential announcement finally came on Thursday, in the form of a policy-free video in which the former vice president castigated the president for his racism and offered peans to an imagined noble American past (presumably, the past of 2008-2016, when Biden served under president Obama) instead of a vision for the future.
“America’s coming back like we used to be,” Biden said of his run. “Ethical, straight, tell ’em the truth. Supporting our allies, all those good things.” It was “Make America Great Again,” delivered from a different old white man, with a slightly more patrician East Coast accent—harking back to a past that never was, and ignoring or, perhaps, tacitly embracing the injustices that the real past contained.