Joe Biden Explains Rick Warren Choice: "This Is a Time to Reach Out." Not Reach Around.

Joe Biden is never at a loss for words. Clearly this former stutterer is making up for lost time. So when George Stephanopoulos asked Biden why Obama had chosen Warren--a man who compares homosexuality to incest and pedophelia--to deliver the invocation, Biden got right to the point:

Well, look, Barack Obama, candidate Obama, Senator Obama, President-elect Obama [just so we're all on the same page on which Barack Obama I'm speaking of] has a--a stellar and outspoken record in support of equality for all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans. But he also has made a judgment--I think correctly--that in order to heal the wounds of this country and move this country forward so we get out of this--this--this mindset overstated of red and blue and the like--that he was going to reach out, he was going to reach out...this is a time to reach out [not reach around.]

This prudish position is somewhat surprising coming from a man who once waxed romantic about spending time with men in foxholes:

I've been in these foxholes with these kids, literally in bunkers with them. Let me tell you something, nobody asked anybody else whether they're gay in those foxholes. Our allies--the British, the French, all our major allies--gays openly serve. I don't know the last time an American soldier said to a backup from a Brit, 'Hey, by the way, let me check. Are you gay? Are you straight?' This is ridiculous.