department of for the love of all that is holy, just stop

oh, Joe. I told you to shut up.

You just couldn't do it, could you, Joe.

Anyone would have thought that after the rousing response you got from the Democratic base when you said this

In thanking a young Indian-American man for the support of his Indian-American group, Sen. Biden touts how Indians are the fastest growing immigrant group in Delaware and says, "You CANNOT go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts without an Indian accent."

and then the terrific boost to your presidential chances when you said this

In November, Biden joked about South Carolina's Confederate past at a Rotary Club meeting in Columbia after organizers said their Christmas party at the Department of Archives and History would include a chance to see the state's original copy of the Articles of Secession.

Biden noted Delaware was "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South - there were a couple of other states in the way."

you would have thought twice about, well, this

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

By the way, Joe, FYI, it's probably best to avoid the word "bright" altogether when discussing skin color-related issues. Not kidding. Really.

Anyway, Joe, I'm not all that expert in getting out the consequences of saying racist things to groups of strangers from a stage with reporters in the audience, because, well, it really doesn't come up.

I think, though, that I can identify at least one thing that you should definitely not do in responding to this latest woopsie.

Unfortunately, you already did it.

"And with regard to the assertions I have just read as I walked over here... about Barack Obama. Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican Party has produced, at least since I have been around. And he is fresh, he is new, he is insightful, and I really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the word 'clean.'

"So I called Barack," he added, "and he said 'Joe you don't have to explain anything to me.'"

Biden also said, "He is probably, as I said the most exciting candidate this party has had in a long time, that was the only point I was trying to make."

About his use of the word "clean" to describe Obama, Biden explained by saying, "My mother has an expression: clean as a whistle, sharp as tack. That's the context."

and he's the very first, too.

I would have thought after Mr. Allen's difficulties you would have figured out that using mom's little expressions isn't always such a great idea.

That said, my own mom has an expression that might be of some use to you.

I'll give you a hint:

Miss Molly, RIP

God gets one more honky tonk angel (I'm told he doesn't make his own)

Molly Ivins, whose biting columns mixed liberal populism with an irreverent Texas wit, died at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at her home in Austin after an up-and-down battle with breast cancer she had waged for seven years. She was 62.

Ms. Ivins, the Star-Telegram’s political columnist for nine years ending in 2001, had written for the New York Times, the Dallas Times-Herald and Time magazine and had long been a sought-after pundit on the television talk-show circuit to provide a Texas slant on issues ranging from President Bush’s pedigree to the culture wars rooted in the 1960s.

"She was magical in her writing," said Mike Blackman, a former Star-Telegram executive editor who hired Ms. Ivins at the newspaper’s Austin bureau in 1992, a few months after the Times-Herald ceased publication. "She could turn a phrase in such a way that a pretty hard-hitting point didn’t hurt so bad."

A California native who moved to Houston as a young child with her family, Ms. Ivins was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Two years later after enduring a radical mastectomy and rounds of chemotherapy, Ms. Ivins was given a 70 percent chance of remaining cancer-free for five years. At the time, she said she liked the odds.

But the cancer recurred in 2003, and again last year. In recent weeks, she had suspended her twice-weekly syndicated column, allowing guest writers to use the space while she underwent further treatment. She made a brief return to writing in mid-January, urging readers to resist President Bush’s plan to increase the number of U.S. troops deployed to Iraq. She likened her call to an old-fashioned "newspaper crusade."

"We are the people who run this country," Ms Ivins said in the column published in the Jan. 14 edition of the Star-Telegram. "We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war.

"Raise hell," she continued. "Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and are trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge."

...

Born Mary Tyler Ivins on Aug. 30, 1944, in Monterey, Calif., Ms. Ivins was raised in the upscale River Oaks section of Houston. She earned her journalism degree at elite Smith College in Massachusetts in 1965. From there she ventured to Minnesota, taking a job as a police reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune...

She called such figures as Ross Perot, former U.S. Sen. John Tower and ex-Gov. Bill Clements "runts with attitudes." As a candidate for governor, George W. Bush became "Shrub," a nicknamed she never tired of using.

Surprised became "womperjawed." A visibly angry person would "throw a walleyed fit."

Ms. Ivins, who was single and had no children, told readers about her first bout with cancer in a matter-of-fact afterword in an otherwise ordinary column.

"I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I fully intend to recover," she wrote on Dec. 14, 1999. "I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done."

Ms. Ivins authored three books and co-authored a fourth. She was a three-time finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and had served on Amnesty International’s Journalism Network, but the iconoclastic writer often said that her two highest honors were being banned from the conservative campus of Texas A&M University and having the Minneapolis police name their mascot pig after her when she covered the department as a reporter during one of her first jobs in the newspaper business.

Out of a million favorite Molly stories: her separation from The Grey Lady is rumored to have taken place after she referred to a chicken cleaning competition as a "gang pluck"

Say hey to Ann Richards for me.

More at the Texas Observer

edit: prime Molly - Camille Paglia ceviche