Yes it is absurd for the Republicans to criticise Biden's comment (which I did think was very ill advised but not in the 'hate-speechey' way the Republicans are crudely projecting onto it).
Quote: Republicans use dog whistle code words all the time when referring to the President, and that includes Mitt himself. Those code words describe the President, or his views, “foreign, un-American, European, socialist, and not of this country.” Romney surrogates said that Obama could not appreciate the special relationship between the U.S and Britain because he didn’t “share our Angle-Saxon heritage.”
This is strange. For one thing, why should he 'share Angle(sic)-Saxon heritage? America sits out between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Not somewhere just east of Croydon. Why should 'Angle-Saxon heritage' be a pre-requisite (and what on earth is it supposed to mean anyway - a value system? A culture? An ancestral heritage?) If you look at Obama's geneology, there's a diverse but predominantly British/English heritage on his mother's side. His mother and her parents are undoubtedly the greatest influences on him, growing up.