Joe Biden and the deranged policing of personal space

Conservative pundits and Republican politicians are joining the Democratic outcry against former vice president Joe Biden, accusing him of inappropriately touching females. They are making a serious mistake. Conferring legitimacy on this latest and craziest flare-up of #MeToo hysteria will further weaponize females to take out any man of their choosing, based simply on their feelings. More consequentially, it will make society impossibly fraught and brittle, intolerant of the ordinary messiness of human interactions and unaccepting of generational differences.

The crusade against Biden began last week when a left-wing Democratic operative and social justice advocate accused Biden of having inappropriately kissed her in 2014. Lucy Flores was running for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada and was about to make a campaign speech. Clearly nervous, she was ‘taking deep breaths’ behind the stage, she says, when she ‘felt two hands’ on her shoulders. ‘I froze,’ she wrote in The Cut. ‘“Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”’

She claims that he ‘inhaled’ her hair and then ‘proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused.’

Flores admits that his behavior ‘wasn’t violent or sexual.’ Indeed, he kissed the back of her head, not her mouth, in what was patently an effort, however clumsy, to boost her confidence. Nevertheless, she calls his actions ‘demeaning and disrespectful.’

Flores decided to come forward with her accusation, she writes, after seeing other examples of Biden ‘getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls:’

‘Biden nuzzling the neck of the Defense secretary’s wife; Biden kissing a senator’s wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women’s ears; Biden snuggling female constituents. . . . Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over the years about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an “open secret” — perhaps it would feel less offensive.’