Biden’s ignorance about foreign policy is ignored
Michael Totten, who knows a thing or two about Lebanon, calls Joe Biden on his egregious error last night (hat tip: Instapundit), describing it as “the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life.” It was far worse than any ignorance Palin, the supposed novice, has shown on any foreign policy issue to date.
But don’t sit on a hot stove till the MSM makes a big deal out of this one. Joe’s an expert, you see—and besides, he’s Barack Obama’s running mate.
Here’s the NY Times on the subject—-not:
Short of a complete bravura performance that would have been tough for even the most experienced national politician to turn in – or a devastating error by the mistake-prone Mr. Biden, who instead turned in an impressively sharp performance – there might have been little Ms. Palin could have done to help Mr. McCain.
Nope, no errors by Mr. Biden. Maybe the Times doesn’t know much about Lebanon either. Or maybe they’re just lying through their hypocritical teeth.
Do you detect a note of anger in me? If so, you would be correct. I would suggest a phone-and-email blitz on the Times if I thought they had any conscience or any shame, but I gave up that idea long ago.
[NOTE: I said I’d write about the bailout bill today, but I’m going to do it tomorrow instead.]
It’s worth pointing this stuff out but not worth getting upset.
Welcome to being on the conservative side, you have to just get used to it. It’s been this way as long as I can recall. It is not going to change anytime soon.
Anyway, lefties get tied in knots over politics. Conservatives just laugh about the absurdity of it [politics]/ and lefties / and ideologies. We have to since we get so much of it from them… that and our ideology is that ideologies are dumb… Anyway, laughing, that was always Reagan’s advice. Just laugh… sometimes at them. 😉
The good news is that an estimated 69.2 million folks saw the debate. They get to make up their own minds. They also get to compare what they saw with the MSM’s take on it, and evaluate the MSM.
Win or lose the election, one of Sarah Palin’s lasting contributions may result from this phenomenon. So many people are coming out to see her, or tune in to her, who will naturally evaluate the MSM reporting based on their personal observation of the same events.
“That’s right–not only did Biden confuse the West Bank and Gaza, he blatantly lied when he said that Barack Obama did not support the Palestinian elections that put Hamas in control of Gaza.”
http://littlegreenfootballs2.com/2008/10/03/biden-lied-about-obama-not-supporting-hamas-election/
“Nope, no errors by Mr. Biden. Maybe the Times doesn’t know much about Lebanon either. Or maybe they’re just lying through their hypocritical teeth.”
Maybe they feel ideology trumps truth and objectivity. It’s interesting though, because of what it says about them and what they say their enemies are. They have no idea they are the enemy they rail against.
All this is, is intellectual laziness and complacency. It’s going to be hard if not impossible to fight because in part, the media owns the message and they’re trained by academia.
I feel that this country is akin to a substance abuser who is only seeking the next good time high, and is not going to be reformed until we all hit rock bottom.
Will the patient be too far gone to recover?
Hard to say at this point.
[q]I feel that this country is akin to a substance abuser who is only seeking the next good time high, and is not going to be reformed until we all hit rock bottom.[/q]
Starting in January the country is going to embark upon this journey to Hope and Change Land, which should lay bare the moral corruption and intellectual sloth that got us into the shit in the first place.
Joe Biden is a bloviator, a liar, and a bad man. I was criticized on a prior thread by a poster for stating this, stating that I was projecting on to Biden my own moral corruption. Well, we will see who was right when the dangerous dogs Sen. Biden makes light of take the measure of our resolve.
I’ll say one thing Biden told the truth about…
This IS the most important election of our lifetimes…
Biden and Obama must NOT get the chance to ruin our country!!!!!!!!!!
May God help us!
A democrat’s lies, er mis-statements of fact being ignored is nothing new, as has been said before here and elsewhere. Hell, remember, if you can, the suspension of belief required to excuse Teddy boy at Chappaquiddick.
What I do sincerely hope for though, is that much of the public that tuned in to see the debate, tuned in to assess Palin for themselves and not rely on the media’s characterization of her.
In ’80 the media rap on Reagan was that he was stupid, out of touch with reality, an evil warmonger and an intellectual lightweight who was hopelessly out of hid depth. Polls were not in his favor either. Not only that, but the mood at the time, from my recollection anyway, seemed very angry and frustrated and ready for a major change after four years of an inept administration.
This was before the internet and modern communications provided the means to end run around the self-appointed ‘gate keepers’ of information. Still, the American voters made up their own minds and elected Reagan.
My hope is that voters have tuned into Pailin because she is new and so very different from the usual political/chattering class chaff and that they will make up their own minds based upon their own impressions and opinions and not fall for the relentless torrent of lies and filth promulgated by the media.
Much has been made about how the media have become so openly in favor of Obama. I have read blogs that say they are using every ounce of energy and influence that they have left because it may well be the last election in which they will be able to wield such influence.
True enough perhaps, but I suspect that part of the motivation for much of the left-leaning mainstream media fighting tooth and nail for the democrats rests in the hopes that if the democrats win not only the Whitehouse in November, but also a veto-proof majority in Congress that we will see a revival of the Fairness Doctrine (how Orwellian) and some form of Net Neutrality Act to effectively gut the free flow of information and opinion that the internet has provided. The hope being that the gate-keepers will get to retain their jobs and return to their glory days of influence.
I don’t hold too many illusions about the republicans either after their feeding frenzy at the public trough during this last decade. But at least they haven’t yet hit rock bottom, like the democrats have.
Unfortunately, the election has once again come down to voting for the lesser of two evils. Whether Pailin maintains her outsider/reformist persona, if elected or morphs into yet another member of the anointed from incumbistan will be interesting to watch.
Well, as I mentioned in a thread below – the basic spin has been that it still proved his vast intelligence and knowledge on the matter. Only someone with that level could even know who that actors were and tell that story.
What still gets me was the *detail* in it – I can’t fathom the mind that said what he did. I mean if he had accidentally said Hezbollah and meant the Syrians then, well, maybe. But then France didn’t join with us to push them out, our withdrawal from Lebanon never occurred (we were never in there), and the Syrians did not have the level of interaction he stated in Lebanon’s govt (Hezbollah did).
In fact we have never allied with France, run a group out of a govt, retreat, and have them return. Lets face it – how many times have we allied with France in the middle east? Desert Storm and Afghanistan. How many times have we ran another group out? Afghanastan and Iraq. And lastly how many places have we made a political decision to pull out when victory was in sight? None – the closest was Desert Storm but back then over running Iraq wasn’t a goal – the next closest is what *he* wants to do there now.
He made up – on the spot – a war with a people we were never at war with, allies we were never allied with, and then had us loose that made up war based on a political decision to withdraw from the region when victory was in sight. Further, he ridiculed that in an attempt to bolster his case for doing exactly that now in Iraq. And there were people that ate it up.
I don’t know if it is too late in this election cycle, but I think the conservative side needs to be more assertive in fighting back. It has been apparent for some time that the mass of the media has transformed itself from its stated ideal as seekers of truth, exposers of corruption, yadda yadda and so forth into the public relations arm of the “progressive” wing of the Democrat party.
One salient thing about these people is that, in spite of their self proclaimed intellectual superiority, they are for the most part insecure followers of trends and seekers of approval. The most powerful tool that can be used against them is ridicule. When the New York Times or any of the other industry leaders acts so brazenly to cover the ineptitude of their chosen candidate or to lie by commission or omission about the opposition candidate then their eternal claim to objectivity needs to be derided as loudly and as widely as possible. But again it needs to be done with wit and satire.
A newspaper can prop up their reputation on the attacks of its enemies, but they can’t stand up to derision and the humorous exposure of their more ridiculous ideas.
We have seen what that kind of a campaign can do to a politician, but that sword can cut both ways. The bias and dishonesty of the Times coupled with their audience’s migration to digital media has already cost it very heavily. Being made a laughing stock could administer the coup de gras…
Delaware must be populated by rubes who all hunt moose and go to evangelical churches or something. How else could he have gotten elected so many times?
What is most frightening about someone like Sen. Biden is his poor grasp of military affairs and weapons systems. He also seems oblivious to the obvious: that the metrics of the war against the Iraqi insurgency even before the Surge strategy clearly showed that we were eviscerating the enemy in combat operations. Yes, yes, we were taking casualties as the enemy got their hands on the Iranian shaped charge IED’s. Yes, the country was riven with terrorist violence, thanks largely to Iran, al Qaeda, and the remnants of the Baathist Fedayeen groups. They would get the headlines the MSM wanted, in order to try to buy time in the hopes that the U.S. would give up and leave. But it did not happen, and they were steadily ground down and the tempo of defeat they suffered only got more intense when intelligence about the enemy was pouring into our military command. And then they were going to really be butchered and chased out of Dodge.
Biden laughs off the success of the Surge. As does his new boss. They are LIGHTWEIGHTS in appreciating and understanding battle and war, and are not fit for command of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Some other examples of his genius:
1. He voted with the House, in 1974, to cut off military aid to the government of South Vietnam in the face of mounting intelligence that North Vietnam was frantically rearmed by the Soviet Union after the Peace Treaty was signed in 1973. We knew the Soviet T-34’s were stacked beyond the DMZ and ready to rumble. For this idiocy, he should be forced to watch “The Killing Fields” forever.
2. He was against the deployment of the Pershing II missiles and the cruise missiles in Western Europe to counter the placement of Soviet medium and short range nukes.
3. He opposed the idea of a ballistic missile defense system proposed by President Reagan. He still opposes it, now that it is a successful reality, is evolving and improving, and is ready to be taken to the next level: laser based systems that can take down MIRV’s (multiple re-entry ballistic missiles).
4. He opposed ejecting the Baathists from Kuwait in 1990.
This man has a history of being soft with America’s enemies. He favors appeasement over necessary confrontation. He believes a show of strength and resolve is provocative. It’s enough to cause one to wonder if he is intellectually defective.
OT;
Some years ago after a home tie like tonights Angels 8th inning, with their closer trying to shut down the Red Sox I would have shut off the tv ….
Those days are but a distant memory …
Go Red Sox!
I just saw Thimothy Hutton with a Red sox cap.
Yucalis just made a great play.
Neo
Would you consider a Red Sox World Series Liveblog?
It’s the playoffs !!!
The commetators marvel at the Red Sox setting a new record for consecutive playoff wins against a single team!
Drew’s homer reminds me of a limping Gibson with the Dogers angainst the As in the world series.
Assistant Village Idiot says:
No, it’s not populated by rubes who came by that condition honestly; it’s populated by the zombie rubes that walk off liberal arts colleges.
Not a word about Lebanon.
Q: Do you agree with VP Cheney that the vice president, under the Constitutions, is not part of the executive branch?
A: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
Wow.
Yeah Lori.. WOW.
The Vice President is a Constitutional officer of neither branch.
You’ve gotta give Sarah Palin credit.
She’s running AGAINST the George W. Bush legacy and was not afraid to say so in the debate, over and over and over again.
Kind of telling that Bush’s most committed supporters, i.e. the only ones left, are now Palin voters.
As usual, the leftists have no clue at all what goes through the minds of Bush supporters. Ask them, and they’d proudly declare “nothing at all.”
Which, in turn, is why McCain will pull off the most shocking win ever, as far as the Stan M is concerned. You can’t defeat an enemy you refuse to understand.
One of the reasons i like classical liberals like you, Neo, is because of how you hate injustice and love justice.
Given such things, political differences, minor or major, mean absolutely nothing to me.
A fresh and thoughtful comment of the present crisis from Silicon Valley:
http://pajamasmedia.com/edgelings/2008/10/03/the-end-of-an-era/
Biden and Obama must NOT get the chance to ruin our country!!!!!!!!!! May God help us!
Your country already ruined by GWB!!
how you hate injustice and love justice.
That her , but I can not find that from you as far as your words here?
Is “a Cowboys” like you “hate injustice and love justice” ?
Wounder that! who belive in “Kill”em All”
By the way, it’s Mrs. Palin, isn’t it? Not Ms.
“what goes through the minds of Bush supporters.”
I suspect it’s something like this:
Palin is actually lying, but for a good cause. Truth is, she loves Bush just like we do, but the evil menace media is forcing her to say she doesn’t like Bush because they keep blaming all the bad stuff that happened when Bush was president on Bush instead of on the Democrats, who are actually responsible.
If she ever gets in office, she’ll be just like Bush, or very close.
Biden can say the US and France chased Hez out of Lebanon. No biggie.
At least he didn’t spell the plural of potato wrong.
I still think we should remember the VP candidates are worth less than a pitcher of spit. Biden and Palin’s lies are worth even less.
Peter the Alaskan Kid,
I have two questions for you.
1. Whence your hostility towards Gov. Palin?
2. As a former Marxist (I had been one from roughly 1977 to 1987), addressing this question to a currently self-described socialist, how did you come to identify with socialism/Marxism?
These are not sarcastic questions. They are honest. Being snarky and deceptive is not at all my way of operating.
FredHjr.
Your question #1 to Alaskan kid is a very good one.
I am really baffled. I can see why some of the Feminist establishment hate her; she repudiates much of what they hold dear and try to push onto other women. Well, I suppose the same can be said for the Intellectual elites. If ordinary people can lead and succeed, why do we need to look to them? So, maybe I have answered my own question.
Regarding #2, I should think that any serious person would recognize by now that, despite any theoretical appeal of Marxism it has failed repeatedly in practice for a clearly observable reason. That is why our own Founders–although they knew nothing of Marxism– were so careful and wise to avoid centralizing power. Unfortunately, we are slowly forgetting the lessons they passed on.
Stan M , that was the dumbest role play i have read in a long time.
“Orwellian” is a term most often uttered by the more sophomoric “progressives”, yet the instant and intense hatred for what ever target the liberal intelligentsia wish to focus on is remarkable. Palin is the new Emanuel Goldstein.
I wonder if Karl Rove feels abandoned now.
when Bush was president on Bush instead of on the Democrats, who are actually responsible
There is some thing of naivety here.
People keep blaming Democrats for the Bush area.
If Bush for two terms in WH could not fix the problem that Democrats started why people keep blaming democrat for Bush fault?
Some will not agree as some Bush he tried but he could not, but let look Republicans have six year in control of senate, and they are leading the country for 8 years so what they done to fix?
The simple answer is lacks of leadership and mismanagement of the country by Bush and his Co.
Presuming John McCain and Palin win next election what guarantees they can fix the problem left by Bush in first term or with second terms?
What about Democrats if the win they can they fix the problem? Or they also put the balm on Bush for future problems in US.
Some people keep their hypobaric high when they talking here about candidates and elections , they seems to forgot that the support they have and love not can fix the problem for the country and Americans
I do not hate Sarah Palin nor do I endorse Marxism, which I honestly think is ridiculous. I don’t know where you get either of these impressions, but I apologize if I somehow indicated either of those things.
I only charge that this blog and many conservatives are flatly ignoring many of Sarah Palin’s faults. Is it hostile to recognize, as someone who has heard her speak many times, that Palin’s diction in the recent debate was utterly contrived and patently ludicrous? Again, I would appreciate a challenge to my assertion that this blog and many of those who read it are actively swimming in a “Palinmania” similar to the ignorance you charge exists surrounding Barack Obama. I very honestly have appreciated Sarah Palin as my governor for quite a while, excepting some few things- namely that she is biased towards her home area of the state (“the valley”- in southcentral) and against my own (southeast).
I think if you were to really pigeonhole me into a political category nowadays, I would be more libertarian than liberal. I only continue to call myself socialist because I believe once government is limited and decentralized enough it will be much easier to achieve near-utopian socialist communities at a local level.
Is that satisfactory?
And FredHjr.:
I feel somewhat complemented from being called part of the “intellectual elite,” but I think you had better wait until I go to college first. I’ll join my own class and stereotype once I become an adult, thank you very much. As for now I am from a very middle class family in a small town (Nowhere, it seems) in a state that now is apparently a part of the “heartland”.
And I agree that centralization is bad. Socialists don’t necessarily support centralization- just big government- and I imagine big government as existing within a small, involved and democratic community.
Pete:
“I would appreciate a challenge to my assertion that this blog and many of those who read it are actively swimming in a “Palinmania” similar to the ignorance you charge exists surrounding Barack Obama.”
Well, for starters; Obama really is connected to an un repentant leftist terrorist, while Palin had nothing to do with forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.
Are we clear yet?
I only charge that this blog and many conservatives are flatly ignoring many of Sarah Palin’s faults.
And who is without fault? No one. Everyone ignores faults in people. To expect a person without faults is to demand that you be lied to.
Is it hostile to recognize, as someone who has heard her speak many times, that Palin’s diction in the recent debate was utterly contrived and patently ludicrous?
Downgrading or upgrading one’s normal diction is a contrivence isn’t it? Why is it any worse when a politician speaks a certain way to impress class A than when a politician gussies up his speaking with big fancy and formal words? If you KNOW for certain she was pandering downwards, then you know you she actually speaks better .. so since you’re just criticizing her for talking like a hillbilly yet knowing that she isn’t, do you equally criticize Obama when he drops down into Angry Black Preacher Man?
Again, I would appreciate a challenge to my assertion that this blog and many of those who read it are actively swimming in a “Palinmania” similar to the ignorance you charge exists surrounding Barack Obama.
No one has ignored Sarah’s weakness. Even in the first paragraph of neo’s article it says:
“It was far worse than any ignorance Palin, the supposed novice, has shown on any foreign policy issue to date.”
Right there it says Palin is ignornat of some foreign policy. We all know this.
I very honestly have appreciated Sarah Palin as my governor for quite a while, excepting some few things- namely that she is biased towards her home area of the state (”the valley”- in southcentral) and against my own (southeast).
I think if you were to really pigeonhole me into a political category nowadays, I would be more libertarian than liberal. I only continue to call myself socialist because I believe once government is limited and decentralized enough it will be much easier to achieve near-utopian socialist communities at a local level.
The Pilgrims tried near-Utopian Socialism at the local level when they first got here. It was a disaster, they almost all died. The work ethic America has today is because of the lessons learned from that.
Also, hippies been trying to do the commune thing for decades… it doesn’t work. You cannot change human nature. Humans are inately selfish. No amount of indoctrination or coercion is going to change that.
Even the Kibbutz in Israel failed. Very few persist.
If you were really were libertarean-leaning you would have removed any traces of Socialism from your profile. Socialism is the epitome of everything that libertearanism is not.
If any of the candidates runing for P or VP is closest to a liberterean it would be Sarah Perin.
And seeing how insist we’re all zombies like the Obamanoids are… I’ll repost the comment I made on the article that neo made right at the end of the debate
So really.. I have no idea where you get that we’re all blind.
I think you are.
And yes you’re elitist. even at your age.
I would also say that “intellectual elitist” are people that feel they are so intellectually superior to others that they have to tell all us rubes what to do and how to do it, otherwise we just wouldn’t know. It also manifests in looking down your nose at “lower class” actions (such as ways of speaking). And you do that in a large way (go back and read some of your older posts and pay attention to what you are complaining about). It has little to do with actual intelligence one way or another – only with the persons perception of their own and their perception of the rest of the world.
Many also peg you as a Marxist because when you tell us your political ideas that is what they are – you may give them a different label (or, most likely wherever or whomever you got them from did so) but they are still Marxists.
Your young so I normally do not jump on much you say yet – you will either figure these things out in a few years and look back at how stupid you were or you will internalize the cognitive dissonance needed to keep those beliefs. If you internalize them then I will if you happen to still post someplace I do too.
That is why our own Founders—although they knew nothing of Marxism— were so careful and wise to avoid centralizing power.
Power either accumulates in one spot or it diffuses throughout.
Over any long period of time, human social dynamics and politics will naturally incline towards accumulating power and ensuring that it does not diffuse. The two are mutually exclusive.
The Marxists or the Aristocrats, who America were fighting, are for accumulating power, they are just for accumulating power in different places. Marx wants power with his little shin dig and the aristos want power in their little fief, instead. They hate each other precisely because they are each other. And they both hate us, America, because we are the death of both of them. Our focus on diffusion of power breaks both Marx’s economic ideology and the aristo’s blue blood beliefs about good governance.
It can be no other way. This is not an enemy you can defeat. You can only push it into the depths of the sea while you teach your children and grandchildren to watch the waves.
decentralized enough it will be much easier to achieve near-utopian socialist communities at a local level.
Communities are another form of accumulation of power into a human hierarchy.
It replaces one boss with many other petty tyrants.
The diffusion of power should never be stopped simply at a lower level hierarchy. That defeats its purpose.
All communities seek to accumulate power to themselves. It is only the processes of power diffusion set by the US Constitution and the American way of life that allows such hierarchies to exist without impeding the power flow to the people.
Without that overarching sets of limitations and enforcements that make power flow backwards from one spot into as many tributaries as it will take to drain the ocean, then what you have are a hundred different clans all raiding, killing, and exterminating each other. Like what the Middle East and Darfur and Rwanda has.