Former vice president Joe Biden went in full pander mode on Tuesday night, telling his audience he regretted the impact of "white man's culture" and said it must change.

Biden made the remarks while apologizing for his role in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing in 1991, where Anita Hill accused the justice of sexual harassment.

Fox News:

The former vice president and potential 2020 Democratic candidate said Hill, who is black, should not have been forced to face a panel of "a bunch of white guys" about her sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas.

"To this day I regret I couldn't come up with a way to give her the kind of hearing she deserved," he said Tuesday night, echoing comments he delivered last fall amid debates about sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation process.  "I wish I could have done something."

Social media exploded at that comment, with several commentators pointing out that Biden was the chairman of the committee at the time:

It literally does not matter what else Biden says about sexual assault if he cannot acknowledge his own culpability in putting a sexual assaulter on the Supereme Court and then pretending for years like he was powerless to stop it. #BelieveSurvivors #IBelieveAnita

— Jess Morales Rocketto (@JessLivMo) March 27, 2019

Hill's allegations were believed by some, but when several other female staffers for Thomas stepped forward saying he never laid a hand on them or harassed them, the matter was left hanging, and Thomas was confirmed.

Biden blamed "white culture" for violence against women:

Biden called on Americans to "change the culture" that dates back centuries and allows pervasive violence against women.  "It's an English jurisprudential culture, a white man's culture.  It's got to change," he said.

The former vice president also repeatedly denounced violence against women during his remarks, which spanned more than a half-hour.  It's a topic he knows well.  As a senator from Delaware, he introduced the Violence Against Women Act in 1990.

"No man has a right to lay a hand on a woman, no matter what she's wearing, she does, who she is, unless it's in self-defense.  Never," he said Tuesday.

This is one of the silliest things Biden has ever said.  White man's culture "allows" pervasive violence against women?  First of all, what the hell is "white culture" anyway?  If Biden means our English judicial system, what exactly does he want to change?  Trial by jury?  Should a defendant be guilty until proven innocent? 

Few cultures "allow" violence against women, and "white culture" isn't one of them.  Biden is right that it's never appropriate to hit a woman for any reason, just as it's inappropriate for a woman to hit a man — a far more common occurrence than most groups advocating to stop violence against women ever acknowledge.

But what makes Biden's apology for white culture so ridiculous is his call for "change" — as if culture changes because of an election or demonstration, or by "heightening awareness."  "Culture" is always changing, the result of tens of millions of individual decisions made by human beings in their daily lives.  To believe that this process can be controlled simply by announcing change is worse than delusional; it's nuts. 

No doubt, Biden impressed the racialists who hate whites as much as white supremacists hate blacks.  But he may have damaged his standing with white working-class voters who have no intention of apologizing to anyone about anything, much less "white culture."  Biden is the Democrats' "Great White Hope" to win those voters back in Midwest battleground states like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

He's certainly not helping his cause any.