One member of Joe Biden’s generation discounts the idea that his handsiness is simply a cultural disconnect. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), nine years younger than the former VP and presumed Democratic presidential frontrunner, scoffed at Biden’s explanation of a generational difference for his behavior with women. Even for men of his age, Kennedy told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, Biden’s conduct was “abnormal, unnatural, weird,” especially his pattern of smelling women’s hair. That wouldn’t make Kennedy happy at all if it happened to him, he tells Camerota:

Republican Sen. John Kennedy on accusations against former Vice President Joe Biden: “If somebody tries to smell my hair I’m not gonna be a real happy guy about it" https://t.co/srth9S9DgN pic.twitter.com/sNcWMDDUgA

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 4, 2019

“This is no country for creepy old men,” Kennedy says, “or young men or middle-aged men.” Camerota mainly agrees, but almost immediately challenges Kennedy to answer for accusations made against Donald Trump. She keeps coming back to Trump even though Kennedy insists that one standard should exist for everyone. No matter who’s doing it, Kennedy concludes, “it’s kinky, or whatever you want to call it.”

Camerota appears to agree, but Mika Brzezinski wants to apply some qualifications to the standard. Biden should get more of a pass because of the loss of his family members, she argues at one point, but also because women didn’t complain about it at the time. “We’re not snowflakes,” Brzezinski declares, “are we?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-BZqxdut-M

“If you can go on national television and talk about Joe Biden putting his hands on your back and now you’re demanding an apology from him because what he said on Twitter is not enough,” she argued, “you probably could’ve told him in real time, and he probably would’ve said ‘I’m sorry, I was trying to be nice.’ It probably could’ve been finished right there.”

“C’mon, we’re not snowflakes,” she emphasized. “We have to decide what we get upset about.”

Whoa there. If contemporaneous complaints are the standard, then a number of people will have to recast their positions on everything from Clarence Thomas to Brett Kavanaugh. Biden’s accused of actual and inappropriate physical contact, not just “personal space issues,” and enough of it took place on camera to assign significant credibility to such complaints. If we want to treat women as fully owning their own agency and holding them accountable for not holding Biden accountable, that makes sense — as long as that standard gets applied equally. That would mean, in this case under Mika’s standard, that women and young girls had to interrupt a swearing-in ceremony to confront the Vice President and tell him to stop touching them in order to later complain about it. We good?

Besides, people have been pointing out Biden’s “weird” behavior for years. It’s not coming out of left field, even if some in left field now want to pretend that it’s news to them. There seems to be a significant number of situational snowflakes surrounding this issue, or better yet conditional snowflakes that want to apply benefit of doubt depending on party ID or endurance in public office. Let’s have one standard that applies to everyone, and put the generational and tragedy excuses away for good.

Here’s a new mash-up of Biden’s mashery, a take-off on a Democratic campaign ad against Trump three years ago. It’s not the first of these masher mash-ups, and it won’t be the last, but at least we will apply one standard equally. Alisyn Camerota and Mika Brzezinski should be satisfied (via Instapundit):