Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Joe Biden, Helping the Ticket Again

Imagine if Sarah Palin made a remark about McCain being old or hot-tempered. Ya think the media wouldn’t be all over it? How about this from slow-Joe Biden:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “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.”

Biden added this little nugget, just for grins: "I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you."

Discussions - 3 Comments

The world indeed tested John Kennedy within 6 months--when he met with Khrushchev in Vienna and got eaten for breakfast. A few months later Khrush. built the Berlin Wall while Kennedy watched. Not long after he sent missiles to Cuba and we came closer than ever before or since to a nuclear holocaust. Joe Biden HAS forgotten a lot of history.

But is this blather on message for Obama? Given that his most important weakness is foreign experience, is it a good argument to elect Obama to say that he will soon be "tested"...compared to McCain???

Alternatively, he is so cock-sure that they're going to win that he is willing to risk this in order to do his part to shore up the base for the moves he knows he and "that One" will have to take in response to a guaranteed challenge. He's at least correct to recognize that the challenge will come. I think he's warning his base that they ought not to expect BO to throw flowers at the enemy if tested. And I think that's probably a fair warning too. Those who think that they're voting for Obama in order to disentangle the US from foreign conflict have got another thing coming. This guy may deal with our enemies Chicago style. While part of me is tempted to appreciate that . . . the rational part of me warns that there will be something that's not just a little full of hubris in his responses. He's not going to be a happy guy when his overtures overseas are not met with the usual deference. It will probably be the first time he's ever met with such a response from anyone other than Conservatives and Hillary Clinton . . . and those people are the nothing more than hicks, after all.

The trouble is, Julie, that he will not deal with our enemies Chicago-style. Those fellows knew the difference between friends and enemies at least, and did not kill more than they had to in order to complete the job. I agree that BO may well turn out to be a scrapper but I continue to believe that he is just as much at risk of overreaction as underreaction. He does not have a good sense of judgment, no prudence I can see which is needed to guide his presumed courage.
As an indication, the WaTi this morning has a front page story about how unpopular BO is in Pakistan. They know the rest of the world adores him, but they see him as a threat. And Pakistan is a friend of the US, or has been until now.

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