Vice President Biden's trip to Asia was the perfect opportunity for a politician with a No, somebody put him there.
But no sooner had Biden arrived at his first stop in Tokyo on Wednesday than his aides were greeted with a nightmare series of headlines and cable TV shout-fests back in Washington over whether the vice president is a sexist with old-fashioned, patriarchal attitudes toward women.
That's a matter for debate?
Biden made the comment during a carefully staged photo op with female employees at a Japanese Internet firm. Sliding into a booth next to five young women, Biden opened his small talk with them by asking, "Do your husbands like you working full time?"
The firestorm not only distracted Biden's communications staff from devoting their full attention to the high-stakes bilateral meetings between the vice president and leaders of Japan, China and South Korea, but it also managed to undermine the entire purpose of Biden's visit to the Internet company -- to promote the need for Japan to accept more women into the workplace.
Biden agreed to highlight the issue because the Obama administration, which has made women's rights a key pillar of its foreign policy agenda,
Maybe something a community organizer can manage.
wanted to support Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push for women to augment the shrinking workforce in a nation with a rapidly aging population and a plummeting birthrate