[Vision2020] Let’s talk about Joe Biden.

[Gabe Storm]

Sorry, Joe -- all of them! The only thing I've gotten right so far is that I
-- we -- need a straightjacket!
My propensity for ad hominem arguments -- especially guilt by association --
this together with my nasty habit of making unsupported charges against
people I don't even know, has reached an all-time high today. What further
proof does one need that I am out of my mind? Please avoid my posts.

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 2:58 AM, No Weatherman <no.weatherman at gmail.com>wrote:

> Unqualified
> Let's talk about Joe Biden.
>
> By Mark Goldblatt
> Given the media drumbeat highlighting Alaska governor Sarah Palin's
> lack of international policy experience and the corollary proposition
> that she's unfit to be a heartbeat from the presidency, it might seem
> heretical to suggest that she's the more qualified of the two
> vice-presidential hopefuls to assume the position of president should
> the need arise.
>
> Yet Senator Joe Biden's performance on the campaign trail over the
> last several months must give even the casual observer pause. Unlike
> Palin, whose tentative interview responses often seem like a
> recognition that she's still on a learning curve, and whose default
> mode is discretion until she has the necessary facts, Biden has made a
> career of running his mouth — even when he has no idea what he's
> saying.
>
> I'm not talking about Biden's comic gaffes — which were legendary even
> before Barack Obama tapped him as his running mate. To be sure, Biden
> hasn't disappointed on this score: "John [McCain]'s last minute
> economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the
> middle class. And it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter
> word: Jobs. J-O-B-S. Jobs."
>
> "Part of what a leader does to instill confidence is demonstrate that
> he or she knows what they're talking about. . . . When the stock
> market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn't just
> talk about 'the princes of greed.' He said, 'Look, here's what
> happened.'" (Except FDR wasn't president when the market crashed in
> 1929, and broadcast television wasn't widely available until the
> 1940s.)
>
> "Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in
> Wilmington and go to Katie's Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with
> me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or
> not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made
> them better off in the last eight years." (Except it turns out Katie's
> Restaurant hasn't existed on Union Street in Wilmington for decades.)
>
> During a speech before a large crowd in Columbia, MO., Biden
> acknowledged State Senator Chuck Graham: "Chuck, stand up, let the
> people see you." It took him a second to realize Graham was
> wheelchair-bound, at which point Biden tried to cover: "Oh, God love
> you. What am I talking about? I'll tell you what, you're making
> everybody else stand up, old pal. I'll tell you what, everybody else
> stand up for Chuck. Stand up for Chuck!"
>
> More troubling than Biden's blooper reel, however, is his habit of
> pontificating from a position of ignorance or outright error: "Vice
> President Cheney's been the most dangerous vice president we've had
> probably in American history. He has — he has — the idea he doesn't
> realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the
> vice president of the United States, that's the executive — he works
> in the executive branch. He should understand that. Everyone should
> understand that." (Except Article II, not Article I, of the
> Constitution defines the executive role of the vice president; indeed,
> the only mention of the vice president in Article I is to designate
> his legislative duty to break tie votes in the Senate. And, oh, by the
> way, does Biden's assessment of Cheney as the most dangerous vice
> president include Aaron Burr, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel,
> and, after being forced from office, possibly committed treason by
> trying to set up an independent republic in the Louisiana
> territories?)
>
> "When we kicked — along with France — we kicked Hezbollah out of
> Lebanon, I said, and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the
> vacuum, because if you don't know — if you don't, Hezbollah will
> control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of
> the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."
> (Except neither the U.S. or France ever kicked Hezbollah out of
> Lebanon; in fact, Hezbollah is still there, as Biden himself correctly
> notes. But if Biden meant to say Syria, not Hezbollah, got kicked out
> of Lebanon, then he's wrong again since the Lebanese people kicked
> Syria out, not the U.S. or France.)
>
> "With regard to arms control and weapons, nuclear weapons require a
> nuclear-arms-control regime. John McCain voted against a Comprehensive
> Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that every Republican has supported." (Except
> 49 other Republican senators voted against the treaty Biden is
> referencing.)
>
> "Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed
> nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the
> Mediterranean." (Except the most powerful missile currently in
> Pakistan's arsenal, the Ghauri, can carry a nuclear warhead 1,000
> miles . . . with poor accuracy; Israel is over 2000 miles from
> Pakistan, so Biden's off by at least 1,000 miles . . . unless he has
> access to classified intelligence about Pakistan's missile systems, in
> which case why would he mention that in public?)
>
> Such factual blunders could perhaps be written off to the exhaustion
> of the campaign trail. But no charitable interpretation can account
> for Biden's recent prediction of the consequences of an Obama victory
> in November: "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack
> Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to
> elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States
> of America. Remember, I said it standing here if you don't remember
> anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis,
> a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
>
> Even if Biden actually believes that America's enemies are more likely
> to provoke a confrontation with a young and inexperienced president
> than they might be with an old hand in the White House, why would he
> want to advertise that belief to the world? Why underscore the
> inconvenient truth that the next executive decision Obama makes will
> be his first? To prep the American people for the idea that his
> administration might initially seem to screw up? Or, in Biden's own
> words, "We're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence
> within the community, to stand with him, because it's not gonna be
> apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
>
> Why is Biden massaging public opinion in advance of a hypothetical
> crisis before he and Obama have even been elected?
>
> For all the questions that have been raised about Sarah Palin's
> qualifications to serve as vice president, Biden now seems like the
> riskier running mate. After all, experience comes with time. Knowledge
> is acquired through study. But temperament doesn't change.
>
> Does Biden's temperament disqualify him?
> — Mark Goldblatt is the author of the novel Africa Speaks.
>
> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmM0YzJjMGRkM2NlNDUxNjg2OWYyNjM5MWE0NzgzZjU=
>
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