Monday, October 06, 2008

Biden's Fantasy World

This article rocks! Is this the upside of insomnia?

Biden's Fantasy World
Sarah Palin may not know as much about the world, but at least most of what she knows is true.

In the popular media wisdom, Sarah Palin is the neophyte who knows nothing about foreign policy while Joe Biden is the savvy diplomatic pro. Then what are we to make of Mr. Biden's fantastic debate voyage last week when he made factual claims that would have got Mrs. Palin mocked from New York to Los Angeles?

Start with Lebanon, where Mr. Biden asserted that "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."

The U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and no one else has either. Perhaps Mr. Biden meant to say Syria, except that the U.S. also didn't do that. The Lebanese ousted Syria's military in 2005. As for NATO, Messrs. Biden and Obama may have proposed sending alliance troops in, but if they did that was also a fantasy. The U.S. has had all it can handle trying to convince NATO countries to deploy to Afghanistan.

Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.

Then there's the Senator's astonishing claim that Mr. Obama "did not say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad" without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no."

Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq.

Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant" in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie's closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr.
Biden's attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe.

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.
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H/T The Corner

The New York Post takes a swing as well.

Some, of course, were just Biden being Biden. He smeared Dick Cheney as "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."

To which we must take specific offense: After all, the founder of this newspaper, Alexander Hamilton, was killed in a duel by then-Vice President Aaron Burr. (Certainly Burr was a better shot than Cheney.)

that's a matter of opinion.

16 comments:

Stella by Starlight said...

LMAO. Burr was a better shot than Cheney. The increased danger lies in the access to more sophisticated weapons overall. Nice to there's someone else in this world that knows their history.

Maggie, I am cynical about politics: they all prevaricate. I'll take Lunchbox Joe over the Killa from Wassilla any day. (Not as if you didn't figure that out already...)

Anonymous said...

Biden's problem is that he's a *gratuitous* liar -- he'll tell one despite knowing the truth himself *and* knowing that the truth is easily-proved. Of course, he also knows he'll get a free pass on it from the press.

Biden has claimed, repeatedly, that his wife and young son were killed by a drunk driver -- they weren't. She pulled out from a side street in front a semi and got T-boned, and the DE State Police investigation specifically stated that the truck driver had *not* been drinking.

Biden's knowledge of the outside world is low, despite his billing as a "foreign affairs" guru. If the O/B ticket makes it to the White House, Jivin' Joe is very likely to give Obie some advice that'll get us into a Class A Romeo Foxtrot...

Beverly J. Goldrup said...

Ouch, Bill. It's true. I found comments on the Snopes message board. (Snopes is a great myth debunker.

More disturbing is the Delaware Online news.

Alcohol didn't play a role in the 1972 crash, investigators found. But as recently as last week, the syndicated TV show Inside Edition aired a clip from 2001 of Biden describing the accident to an audience at the University of Delaware and saying the truck driver "stopped to drink instead of drive."

The truth is the truth, Bill. I'm still voting for Obama/Biden. There have been just as many lies coming from the Republicans. It's called politics.

Just for the record, I wanted Gen. Wesley Clark.

BostonMaggie said...

Come on! Biden lies and is caught and your answer is "Republicans lie"????? Barbara that is such a weak arguement. I don't buy it when my kids try it on me ("Tom your room needs to be cleaned." "Mum, Frankie didn't clean his room.") Biden is a provable liar. That's a character flaw. He should not be vice-president.

Obama/Biden are not running against Republicans.....plural....some monolith. They are running against McCain/Palin. Show me where either of them has lied. You can show me where you disagree with them. You can show me something you don't like, but you can not show me a lie.

This is like when people say crap about "W" and how he wasn't a good choice and some Democrats could have done better. Yes, some Democrats could have done better. But not Kerry and not Gore.

This election is not Republicans vs. Democrats, it's Obama vs. McCain. Not Bush vs. Obama. Not Republicans vs. Obama. McCain vs. Obama. Compare character. Compare records. McCain should win.

Anonymous said...

Beverly post one lie McCain has told in this campain. You can't do it.... chrip chrip whats that I here crickets..... Obama and Biden can't open there mouth with out lyin. Obama changed his life story so many times it has become a joke.

Spanky

Stella by Starlight said...

Maggie, let me help new visitor Beverly out and silence those crickets since she and I are in agreement.

Here's 106 lies, The Army Times counts a flip flop. And here's one for Palin: she hasn't been around as long. Give me time.

Then, there's the POW story about North Vietnamese soldier etching a a cross in the dirt at Christmas. Touching story. The trouble is McCain read and admires Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The Russian writer used this same story in his book. Coincidence? Doubtful. I do, however, admire his taste in reading. Intellectually, McCain would be a step up from Dub.

Maggie, I hold Dub in the highest contempt. He cut veterans' benefits six years in a row: unconscionable. Many benefits previously in effect are now listed for return by IAVA before Bush.

There are so many lies that came out of this administration that I'd prefer to stop now rather than argue lose you as someone with whom I greatly enjoy communicating. I did not get snide about the Joe Biden post: I wanted to get to the truth.

I, too, voted for Gen. Clark in the primaries. I think he'd be a great president to heal the American divisiveness. I respectfully disagree: either Gore or Kerry could have done a far better job. Now, if Gore would get a smaller house, I'd feel a whole lot better. This fact about Gore annoys me greatly.

I don't know who will win and would not declare either candidate a winner. We still have 30 days, and much can change. You are right that it's Democrats vs. Republicans. People tend to say Obama v. McCain as a kind of inappropriate shorthand: sometimes, politics tends to be a cult of personality.

Poor Beverly, she didn't know what she was in for... Hmmm... no crickets... well, what do you know, Spanky.

Vigilante said...

Two points:

Maggie, it's entirely understandable Republicans want this election to be between McCain and Obama. That's because they don't want to run on their record of ruin. This is an election that pits Busheney and their fellow travelers (which certainly include Senator Mc90Percent) against the American people.

Secondly, as Beverly and Stella know and understand, if Wes Clark had been selected for the Democratic Vice President, McCain would win in a single-digit number of states. They may deserve him, but America (including Massachusetts) will choose better.

Vigilante said...

I continue to rail against the prior restraint exercised by the Administrator's COMMENT MODERATION imposed on this otherwise laudable site. I will single this site out for its excessive timidity in an up-coming post on my site.

BostonMaggie said...

Sorry Vigilante but you have slipped off into some fantasy world if you think Americans would have put up with Weasely Wes Clark against McCain. The military people I know almost lost their minds when Clark was disparaging McCain's record. Especially in light of his own.

Vigilante said...

Idea! Why not post a column giving details as to how Senator McCain's career equals General Clark's. Talking about 'fantasy world'? That would be a doooooosie!

BostonMaggie said...

I suggest you read up on Clark yourself before you ask me that. You won't like the results.

Vigilante said...

What did I miss? Huh?

BostonMaggie said...

You didn't miss it. You have it. You just choose to look at it differently. Pristina was a dangerous incident. Most Americans will never know how dangerous. I blame Clark.

Stella by Starlight said...

Well, On the Issues summarizes Clark's standing. For Maggie, I think this article might amuse you.

I have to amend a comment on Fact Check: Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said "he wouldn't even sit down" with the government of Spain. Actually, McCain didn't reject a meeting, but simply refused to commit himself one way or the other during an interview.

True, but McCain did state that Spain was in Latin America. Huh?

Fact Check, as always, did a great article on Whoppers from both presidential candidates.

We can argue these points until January 20th, 2009 and beyond, but why?

I am a moralist in disguise; it gets me into heaps of trouble when I go thrashing around in political questions.
~~Mark Twain.

Anonymous said...

The trouble is McCain read and admires Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The Russian writer used this same story in his book.

Hate to burst your bubble, Stella, but Solzhenitsyn never wrote about the cross-in-the-dirt in *any* of his books, so McCain couldn't have gotten it from that source.

According to Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn: A Biography the episode "never happened" to Solzhenitsyn personally and didn't appear in The Gulag Archipelago, the novel everyone cites as the source of the story.

As for Wes Clark, his subordinates referred to him as "The Prince of Darkness" because of his problems with integrity and character. He's *not* the type of person you'd want as a Commander, let alone as the Commander-in-Chief.

Maggie said Priština was a dangerous incident -- that's an understatement. Clark ordered a British *Light Infantry* unit to advance against a Russian *armored* column. Light Infantry, unsupported by anti-armor weapons, cannot survive against tanks. His order, if the Brit commander hadn't had the good sense to tell Clark to go stuff it, would have led to the destruction of an allied unit and quite possibly to a hot, brief, deadly war with Russia -- of course, if that had happened, none of us would be here to debate the merits of the various candidates because none of us would *be* here...at all.

Stella by Starlight said...

Talking Points provides another possible source. The Atlantic credits the story recounted by Solzhenitsen, as told by [Fr.] Luke Veronis, [in] "The Sign of the Cross".

I stand by what I said. If not Solzhenitsyn, McCain cribbed that story from somewhere. [[source].

I was unaware that Clark tried to order light infantry against tanks. Liberal periodicals concur. See Katrina Vanden Heuval, editor of The Nation article and Democracy Now.

Well, Bill, bubble burst. I still support the platform Clark presented in '04. Vigilante makes a good case for a Clark VP. Still, I intend to review some more articles. Thank you so much for your comments, Maggie Bill, and, Vig.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
~~Oscar Wilde