For himself that is. I saw some pretty silly comments out of Chris Matthews last night about how Biden is going to hold HRC accountable. It makes no sense as she has no plans to repudiate Obama's legacy.
I have always loved Joe and defended him against the charge that he is a gaffe machine. Last night all anyone wanted to do was praise this guy to the Heavens.
Rachel Maddow talked about how everyone in politics-Republican and Democrat-loved him.
Of course Rachel and no one else either mentioned the old gaffe machine meme. This is what his GOP buddies were calling him in 2011 and the media was playing along. Then they were saying that he was such a liability that Obama should get rid of him for: HRC.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/remember-when-media-wanted-obama-to.html
This is fine as I always liked Joe as well. But he did get out at the right time-for everyone. Probably including President 'Obama I'm guessing who though no one talks about right now, is behind Hillary 100%.
I say he got out at the right time because if he had gotten in things would have gotten very nasty. He would have played that noxious 'Biden values vs. Clinton values' meme and HRC and her friends would have had to fight back.
And as a supporter of hers I'd have to go there too. And Joe had given us a lot to fight back with. There is a lot to go after him on-Anita Hill, his abortion record, his vote for that credit card bill.
But worst of all were a few of the things that he came out with on Tuesday night. He tried to rewrite history on the Bin Laden raid, claiming that he supported it and HRC was more skeptical when the opposite was the case in the President's account and that of most other accounts which are informed.
Then Joe went in a very strange direction that I considered much more disconcerting than even this case of revisionist history run amok. He took a clear swipe at HRC for calling the GOP her enemy at that first debate.
He even said he likes Dick Cheney. I'm sorry abut running as a Dick Cheney Democrat? What?
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/joe-biden-boasts-of-liking-dick-cheney.html
As Charles Pierce says, this is not exactly the way to win the Democratic nomination.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39048/joe-biden-dick-cheney-nomination/
And this is very important and I think demonstrates that Biden in all seriousness was just not the right man for the job. The right man is a woman!
Because one of her best moments at the debate as Rachel Maddow highlighted well, was the way she came out with her bellicose talk of taking the fight to the Republican enemy.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/hillary-clinton-is-all-about-taking.html
I'm sorry, but the time for pretending that the GOP is an honorable, sane, rational opposition is long gone. This is the very Original Sin of Krugman's Very Serious People in the Beltway to pretend that both parties are about the same.
Heather Diigby has writtten extensively of this. She was rightly very concerned as I and a number of other Democrats after Joe's Dick Cheney moment.
"Joe Biden’s disastrous GOP strategy: Why making a campaign about “bipartisanship” can only end in failure Biden has had a first-row seat for Republican intransigence. So why's he talking about "reaching across the aisle"?
How do you negotiate with a party that can't even negotiate with itself?
"America’s “bipartisan” delusion: How the White House learned to ignore Republicans
President Obama soared to office promising to reach across the aisle. Here's why he finally quit wasting his time."
I have always loved Joe and defended him against the charge that he is a gaffe machine. Last night all anyone wanted to do was praise this guy to the Heavens.
Rachel Maddow talked about how everyone in politics-Republican and Democrat-loved him.
Of course Rachel and no one else either mentioned the old gaffe machine meme. This is what his GOP buddies were calling him in 2011 and the media was playing along. Then they were saying that he was such a liability that Obama should get rid of him for: HRC.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/remember-when-media-wanted-obama-to.html
This is fine as I always liked Joe as well. But he did get out at the right time-for everyone. Probably including President 'Obama I'm guessing who though no one talks about right now, is behind Hillary 100%.
I say he got out at the right time because if he had gotten in things would have gotten very nasty. He would have played that noxious 'Biden values vs. Clinton values' meme and HRC and her friends would have had to fight back.
And as a supporter of hers I'd have to go there too. And Joe had given us a lot to fight back with. There is a lot to go after him on-Anita Hill, his abortion record, his vote for that credit card bill.
But worst of all were a few of the things that he came out with on Tuesday night. He tried to rewrite history on the Bin Laden raid, claiming that he supported it and HRC was more skeptical when the opposite was the case in the President's account and that of most other accounts which are informed.
Then Joe went in a very strange direction that I considered much more disconcerting than even this case of revisionist history run amok. He took a clear swipe at HRC for calling the GOP her enemy at that first debate.
He even said he likes Dick Cheney. I'm sorry abut running as a Dick Cheney Democrat? What?
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/joe-biden-boasts-of-liking-dick-cheney.html
As Charles Pierce says, this is not exactly the way to win the Democratic nomination.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39048/joe-biden-dick-cheney-nomination/
And this is very important and I think demonstrates that Biden in all seriousness was just not the right man for the job. The right man is a woman!
Because one of her best moments at the debate as Rachel Maddow highlighted well, was the way she came out with her bellicose talk of taking the fight to the Republican enemy.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/hillary-clinton-is-all-about-taking.html
I'm sorry, but the time for pretending that the GOP is an honorable, sane, rational opposition is long gone. This is the very Original Sin of Krugman's Very Serious People in the Beltway to pretend that both parties are about the same.
Heather Diigby has writtten extensively of this. She was rightly very concerned as I and a number of other Democrats after Joe's Dick Cheney moment.
"Joe Biden’s disastrous GOP strategy: Why making a campaign about “bipartisanship” can only end in failure Biden has had a first-row seat for Republican intransigence. So why's he talking about "reaching across the aisle"?
"It certainly did not help that Joe Biden was friends with Republicans back in 2011 when he went behind Harry Reid’s back and negotiated the deal which will be remembered as the low point of the Obama administration — a low point which served as a lesson in how not to deal with Republicans."
"Biden’s paean to bipartisanship is old thinking, a vestige of the past. That he is still making this argument in the face of all we know should strike fear into the hearts of Democrats everywhere, should he actually become president."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/joe_bidens_disastrous_gop_strategy_why_making_a_campaign_about_bipartisanship_can_only_end_in_failure/
The only saving grace for me when I was reading the article was that by then the news was already in that Joe was bowing out.
My strong suspicion is the Obama White House itself was concerned by these latest Bidenisms and encouraged Joe to pull the plug. They would never admit this-at least during this part of the election cycle but I think they felt like it was enough.
But even with Joe out, it's important to qualify one thing. Chris Matthews made a lot of Biden's vow to discipline anyone failed to run on Obama's record. I don't really get that as no one certainly not HRC is trying to distance themselves from the President.
I suspect that in Joe's mind Obama's legacy is of working with Republicans!! He did come in 2009 thinking he'd do just that. But he has long since been disabused of this self-defeating notion.
"It is clear that the even within the Republican Party it is impossible to form a compromise at the moment. The fatuous delusion that there is some middle ground to be found with the GOP and the Democrats sounds like something out of a fairy tale. Indeed, as Greg Sargent points out in this perspicacious piece in the Washington Post, the most successful moments of the Obama administration’ dealing with this outlaw GOP congress have been, as Dan Pfeiffer admitted in that exit interview, when they accepted that the only way to deal was to simply say no:"
“The whole point of Obama’s repeated refusals during his second term to negotiate on the debt limit was to break the Republican addiction to using leverage in fiscal standoffs to extract concessions from Democrats. The idea was that, even if these standoffs continued to be treated falsely as conventional negotiations, they had in fact strayed on to unconventional, dangerous grounds. The ground rules needed to be reset, so that these standoffs no longer threatened to unleash extreme damage (say, if we defaulted), if something were to go wrong and a deal were to fall through. And it worked. In this sense, it was the refusal to negotiate with Republicans that in the end produced more functional government.”
"Biden’s paean to bipartisanship is old thinking, a vestige of the past. That he is still making this argument in the face of all we know should strike fear into the hearts of Democrats everywhere, should he actually become president."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/joe_bidens_disastrous_gop_strategy_why_making_a_campaign_about_bipartisanship_can_only_end_in_failure/
The only saving grace for me when I was reading the article was that by then the news was already in that Joe was bowing out.
My strong suspicion is the Obama White House itself was concerned by these latest Bidenisms and encouraged Joe to pull the plug. They would never admit this-at least during this part of the election cycle but I think they felt like it was enough.
But even with Joe out, it's important to qualify one thing. Chris Matthews made a lot of Biden's vow to discipline anyone failed to run on Obama's record. I don't really get that as no one certainly not HRC is trying to distance themselves from the President.
I suspect that in Joe's mind Obama's legacy is of working with Republicans!! He did come in 2009 thinking he'd do just that. But he has long since been disabused of this self-defeating notion.
"It is clear that the even within the Republican Party it is impossible to form a compromise at the moment. The fatuous delusion that there is some middle ground to be found with the GOP and the Democrats sounds like something out of a fairy tale. Indeed, as Greg Sargent points out in this perspicacious piece in the Washington Post, the most successful moments of the Obama administration’ dealing with this outlaw GOP congress have been, as Dan Pfeiffer admitted in that exit interview, when they accepted that the only way to deal was to simply say no:"
“The whole point of Obama’s repeated refusals during his second term to negotiate on the debt limit was to break the Republican addiction to using leverage in fiscal standoffs to extract concessions from Democrats. The idea was that, even if these standoffs continued to be treated falsely as conventional negotiations, they had in fact strayed on to unconventional, dangerous grounds. The ground rules needed to be reset, so that these standoffs no longer threatened to unleash extreme damage (say, if we defaulted), if something were to go wrong and a deal were to fall through. And it worked. In this sense, it was the refusal to negotiate with Republicans that in the end produced more functional government.”
How do you negotiate with a party that can't even negotiate with itself?
"America’s “bipartisan” delusion: How the White House learned to ignore Republicans
President Obama soared to office promising to reach across the aisle. Here's why he finally quit wasting his time."
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/10/americas_bipartisan_delusion_how_the_white_house_learned_to_ignore_republicans/
The bipartisan delusion has done a lot of harm.Since Biden still believes in it now, and HRC totally sees through it, it is a relief for the Democratic party that he is out and she is in.
No comments:
Post a Comment