As Biden Welcomes Irish PM This Week, Remember His 8 Words that Once Offended Ireland

By Samantha Chang March 16, 2022 at 7:02am

President Joe Biden will host Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin at the White House on Thursday to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Unfortunately for him, any hope of memory-holing his pointed jab about the Irish three years ago already has been dashed.

On Monday, the Irish Mirror noted that while Biden is popular in the Emerald Isle because of his Irish ancestry, his gaffe suggesting Irish people are “stupid” remains a stinging memory.

“I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid,” he said in December 2019 while campaigning for president in Iowa.

Joe Biden at a forum for Democratic candidates in Iowa “I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid.” Wonder what Irish people (like me) would make of that. #Teamsters2020

— john mulholland (@jnmulholland) December 7, 2019

At the time, Biden’s insulting remark irritated Trina Vargo, who served as an adviser on Irish relations to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.

She said his thoughtless jab endorsed offensive, obnoxious stereotypes about the Irish and he needed to cut it out.

“Joe Biden clearly has nostalgic feelings about his Irish ancestry, so I doubt he intended to insult Irish people, but that does not excuse such a comment,” Vargo told The Times of London in 2019.

“There remain dated and ignorant stereotypes of the Irish, and it is time for Americans, including some Irish-Americans, to catch up with the times and have a more sophisticated understanding of the Irish,” she said.

Do you think Biden's "joke" mocking the Irish is over the line?

The insulting barb is all the more inexcusable because Biden had cracked the same “joke” on more than one occasion.

In 2015, when the then-vice president was posing for a photo with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina during a swearing-in ceremony, he motioned for a woman to be included in the picture, saying: “I tell you what, man, I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid.”

Normally, you could dismiss the dig as yet another example of Biden’s nonstop gaffes throughout his 50-year political career, except that as president, he has made promoting “racial equity” for black people a focal point of his administration.

This rabid push for “equity” (instead of equality) means every policy action has to pass this litmus test: Does it help black Americans?

This warped racial prism through which everything Biden says or does is noteworthy because he would never feel free to belittle the intelligence of black people. But he has no qualms about doing that to the Irish.

Despite his careful approach, Biden has offended almost every demographic group there is.

The United States is teetering on the brink of World War III, thanks to this administration’s feckless leadership.

As America is ravaged by soaring inflation, daily border invasions, rampant homelessness and terrifying crime waves, Biden should modify his racist jab ahead of St. Patrick’s Day: He may be Irish, but he is stupid.

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