From the AP

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Just Biden being Biden? VP's odd moves give pause

Associated Press By JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press

5 hrs ago

WASHINGTON — Here's the thing about impromptu moments in politics: Often they work, sometimes they fall flat, but occasionally they turn out downright awkward. Vice President Joe Biden learned that the hard way Tuesday — twice.

Hosting a White House summit on violent extremism, Biden sought to draw a parallel between Minneapolis, where local leaders are working to prevent radicalization of Somali youth, and his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, which Biden said also has a "large, very identifiable Somali community."

"I might add, if you ever come to the train station you may notice that I have great relations with them, because an awful lot of them are driving cabs, and are friends of mine," Biden said.

His audience — a group of religious and community leaders, many of them Muslim or of African descent — responded with muted, uncomfortable chuckles as Biden continued without skipping a beat. "For real. I'm not being solicitous, I'm being serious," he said.

To some, the observation smacked of a well-publicized gaffe that then-Sen. Biden made in 2006, when he told an Indian-American supporter that in Delaware, "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." Amid the resulting dust-up, Biden's aides said he simply meant to highlight the vibrant Indian-American community in his home state.

Just a few hours before musing about the preponderance of Somali cabbies, Biden was swearing in new Defense Secretary Ash Carter when he got up close and personal with the wife of the man who now runs the most powerful military in the world.

(excerpted. read more at link above.)