Of course intent matters. And, yes, you are right that there are plenty of people saying that intent does not matter.
I hope you don't mind that I make a list of some specific observations I had about this...
Things I understand and/or agree with:
1.) Any person Joe interacts with telling him, politely but forcefully, that what he's doing is not appreciated and that he should stop.
2.) Any person extending their normal personal boundaries, for a brief moment, to tolerate a more tactile than normal human being like Joe Biden.
3.) Any person observing Joe Biden interact with people and thinking "boy, that seems like too much for my tastes".
Things that have rubbed me the wrong way:
1.) A woman -- whom Joe Biden was helping at the time -- goes out of her way to torpedo his career by publicly airing complaints about him, even though she never said anything to Joe privately. I don't think we can overstate the size of the knife this woman drove into Biden's back.
2.) Large numbers of busy bodies -- who don't know Joe from Adam -- feeling like they have some right to decide how Joe will handle his noncriminal personal business.
3.) The default assumption that during friendly social banter and occasions you don't ever, ever just touch another human being.
4.) This assumption #3 to the extent that anyone who does end up touching another -- in whatever innocent way it might go down -- is immediately viewed with suspicion.
I realize that, supposedly, #3 and #4 have nothing to do with any of this, but that's just not how the world works. These formerly were mostly natural instinctive phenomenon happening in real time. Now everyone's got to be all up in their own heads during every microsecond. Yeehaw.
I hope you don't mind that I make a list of some specific observations I had about this...
Things I understand and/or agree with:
1.) Any person Joe interacts with telling him, politely but forcefully, that what he's doing is not appreciated and that he should stop.
2.) Any person extending their normal personal boundaries, for a brief moment, to tolerate a more tactile than normal human being like Joe Biden.
3.) Any person observing Joe Biden interact with people and thinking "boy, that seems like too much for my tastes".
Things that have rubbed me the wrong way:
1.) A woman -- whom Joe Biden was helping at the time -- goes out of her way to torpedo his career by publicly airing complaints about him, even though she never said anything to Joe privately. I don't think we can overstate the size of the knife this woman drove into Biden's back.
2.) Large numbers of busy bodies -- who don't know Joe from Adam -- feeling like they have some right to decide how Joe will handle his noncriminal personal business.
3.) The default assumption that during friendly social banter and occasions you don't ever, ever just touch another human being.
4.) This assumption #3 to the extent that anyone who does end up touching another -- in whatever innocent way it might go down -- is immediately viewed with suspicion.
I realize that, supposedly, #3 and #4 have nothing to do with any of this, but that's just not how the world works. These formerly were mostly natural instinctive phenomenon happening in real time. Now everyone's got to be all up in their own heads during every microsecond. Yeehaw.