‘Brussels, Capital of the Free World!’: Joe Biden at the European Parliament
Joe Biden’s May 6 speech to the European Parliament appears to have been largely ignored by the American media, both old and new. The full performance can be viewed below.
The video comes complete with images (at 0:18 of the clip) of Biden puffing out his chest as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the unofficial EU anthem, is played.
Biden and the president of the parliament, Jerzy Buzek, appear to believe that one is supposed to puff out one’s chest during the playing of the EU anthem, in the same way that one is supposed to put one’s hand over one’s heart during the playing of the American national anthem. Perhaps it is so. Green Party parliamentary leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit chatting amiably and chuckling during the playing of the anthem (0:34) is another nice touch. Americans in particular might notice that the chamber is only about half full at best. This is actually not a bad day at the European Parliament, which is renowned for its absenteeism.
The modest turnout of the euro-parliamentarians did not, however, prevent the vice president from praising the EU to the skies, even at the cost of seemingly running down his own country. The most notable passage in this respect is undoubtedly the following, which begins at 7:17 in the clip:
As you already know, ladies and gentlemen, … some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, D.C., as the capital of the free world. But it seems to me that in this great city, which boasts one thousand years of history, which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters of NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to this title.
Biden goes on to describe Brussels as “the bastion of European democracy” (8:31) and to express wonderment at the fact that the U.S. Congress and European Parliament together “shape the laws for nearly one-eighth of the world’s population” (8:41).
What a moron!
The EU is anti-democratic to the core. None of its officials are elected, neither the kommissars nor the president or anyone else there for that matter. The parliament is a travesty where europes political parties put their failed politicians on a cushy pension. And for which a vote from Malta counts as much as 40.000 votes from Germany. The Euro was pushed through against the will of a huge majority of the population, as well as the lisbon treaty.
Now we see europe fail, as a huge bureaucracy built by economic illiterates eventually must. And good riddance i might say, except for the enormous cost in prosperity of this failure.
Oh, but Europe is the model where Biden, Obama and their party want to take the US. So…maybe its a good thing Europe is failing now and not 10 years later (as i was predicting).
You don’t grasp it, yet.
The whole idea is to have a polity where the “democratic institutions” or nothing but window-dressing and all the real governing is done by bureaucratic fiat – Kommisars.
This is the principle behind a socialist government – an unelected elite cabal that rules by diktat over the proletariat and crushes the bourgeoisie capitalists beneath regulation and threats of imprisonment for violating public order and that controls every aspect of everyone’s life for the benefit of the state (and their own personal utopias).
I can just see Barry begging Putin to become Stalin so he can be properly worshiped by the adoring and victorious socialists Das Amerika. He probably even promised Puty he could personally deliver Bush and McCain to the Gulag.
Biden sure did everything he could to convey the impression that America started with his election to Congress and Obama’s election to the presidency. I guess Obama came up with the SWIFT agreement. Note the applause when he mentioned reaching out to Iran. Note the approval of the decision to close Guantanamo. The EU parliament is very impressed with papers and speeches, not so much with follow-up and results. One of its main objectives is to serve as a place to park party hacks who have become a drag in national politics.
I am glad that Gaffe Mouth Joe found a home away from home in Brussels. He should be permanent envoy there.
Hilarious, another Bidenism, the EU is a disaster, a bunch of unaccountable, mostly unknown, ludicrously incompetent Eurocrats, over-paid & self-serving, corrupt, infected with a brain-numbing political correctness & self-destructive multiculturalism. The EU is unable to defend itself, for which it depends on the US. A combination of irresponsible Socialist nanny-state policies & a lower-than-replacement level birthrate, well, the EU is basically bankrupt. They are going over a cliff. Add in the mass immigration of an hostile & rather indigestible Muslim population, the future is pretty grim. So, it isn’t surprising that someone of Biden’s intellect would praise the horrendous failure of the EU bureaucratic monstrosity.
What a pidgeon-chested maroon! EU style “democracy” comes natural to the Obama clique, evidently. The people are against it? Well, we know best.
The clip with Joe dissing our country should be played in a loop everywhere during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The list the adjectives describing him and his ignorance which is bursting my gut would get this comment bumped.
Is he a sick #*(^!#!!! or what?
Biden is such an intellectual pygmy.
That is not speaking well of pygmies.
This is THE most embarrassing, shameful administration I think in American History! I hope America is waking up to what is happening…………
Biden is deluded. The EU is a construct of the communists. The USA was home to the free world–until the communists won the White House. Now, there is no ‘free’ world.
This clown is a heartbeat away from the American presidency, an office currently occupied by an incompetent narcissist. Behind him is a woman who would not tell you the truth if you asked her if she was breathing, and wants nothing but power, power and more power.
2.5 more years of this, if we are LUCKY?
God help us.
Joe Biden is an idiot. A half educated man who deludes himself into thinking that he actually has substance and gravitas when in reality his role is to be the court jester to the Obama regime.
When Obama runs in 2012, will Biden be his running mate?
At this point it seems Obama would choose a much stronger person due to his own unpopularity in many quarters.
“the bastion of European democracy”?
Leave it to the deformed souls, reprobates, scalawags, scoundrels and similar ilk who have their bloody paws on the levers of government to cast a blind eye, to writings like this: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=3045827
Their reputation forevermore will be worse than that of Mudd, and of Stanley Baldwin.
Biden announces the future. Of course, the EU capital of democracy is “democracy” in “people’s democracy” sense, but, words means as they are used and the word “bureaucracy” can’t be used to describe a form of government, as it already means something else.
I think Biden would be a great guy to go to a bar with, drink a few beers, play shuffle board, that sort of thing. I hear he knows some really good dirty jokes.
His hair plugs don’t look as bad as they used to.
Biden has to be the most knucleheaded man in public office at the moment. I sure hope he keeps it up.
Good, let’s move the UN to Brussels then.
Isn’t the EU building in Brussels made to look like the Tower of Babel? I guess Americans are not suppose to see that.
How about the EU symbol of the whore riding the beast? She is pretty, but she is Europa, and the beast is Zeus as a bull. Remember pagans love the horns of the bull. You see it on top of Mosques a lot.
I wonder if it ever occurs to anyone in this administration that it is possible to compliment other countries without running down their own.
How about this: The EU, the US and Canada end the distorting of the global agricultural market via profoundly heavy subsidies.
That way there will be fewer illegal immigrants in the US, and there will be less money being lifted by government from those whose government derives its authority.
Make sure you save the video to replay in the next year or so when the EU disintegrates. What an absolute idiot Biden is. He probably doesn’t even realize he looks like such an ass.
At least when the current government is shown the door in 2012, Biden may have a future writing headlines for The Onion.
How many divisions does Brussels have to keep the world free? Biden is a mental twerp.
It’s amazingly frightening to me that Biden thinks the EU anything at all to do with freedom.