“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” Joe Biden, February 12, 2010.
Just Politics?
All politicians hedge and backtrack, as the daily news proves their previous assertions and boasts wrong. That somersaulting is part of American politics. But even the most astute triangulators know when to go silent, especially in the age of the Internet when one’s past statements are so easily juxtaposed with present reality.
Consider for a minute the Joe Biden odyssey on Iraq, because it has proven a variable primer on how the political class reinvented itself depending on the current pulse of the battlefield. Biden, like others, did not merely “evolve” on the war, but at each stage of his metamorphosis, emerged as a vehement, loud advocate of an entirely new position usually at odds with his prior assertions.
He apparently felt that either his charisma might delude us, or his apparent instability might earn from us an exemption along the lines following his unhinged statement that FDR addressed the nation on TV as President in 1929 —“Ah, that’s just Ol’ Joe being Ol’Joe,” or that we all suffer from collective amnesia:
Biden’s Timeline —”Dead, flat wrong”
1990: Biden votes against the first Gulf War and Bush I’s efforts to get Saddam out of Kuwait.
1998: Biden supports Bill Clinton’s call for regime change and “to dethrone Saddam Hussein over the long haul.”
2002: Biden asserts that Saddam has biological and chemical weapons and is seeking a nuclear arsenal, proclaiming, “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat.” He then votes in October for 23 writs authorizing President Bush to remove the dictator by force if need be.
2005: Joe Biden reassures the country that we must stay in Iraq: “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out – equally a mistake.”
2006: Biden declares that a sovereign Iraq is not sustainable, calls for trisecting Iraq into three separate entities and demands that President Bush “must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008.”
He adds that “Mr. Bush has spent three years in a futile effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad, leaving us without a real political settlement, with a deteriorating security situation — and with nothing but the most difficult policy choices.”
2008: Joe Biden forecasts, “The surge isn’t going to work either tactically or strategically. … Tactically it isn’t going to work because … our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don’t have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can’t hold it or won’t hold it.”
Joe Biden votes for legislation to oppose the surge, declaring that, “It’s an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq.” He reiterates that the surge will not only fail, but make things worse: “I believe it will have the opposite — I repeat — opposite effect the president intends.”
Biden later elaborates on that: “The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together. …There is little evidence the Iraqis will settle their differences peacefully any time soon. I believe the president has no strategy for success in Iraq.”
Biden then tells Gen. Petraeus that he is “dead, flat wrong.” He later concludes there is “no end in sight” in Iraq and staying is “killing us.”
2009: A Vice President Biden accepts the Bush-Petraeus plan of continuing a U.S. combat presence in Iraq, and accepts the status of forces agreement and timetable of withdrawal as negotiated with the Iraqis by the Bush administration to remove U.S. combat troops as envisioned by the end of 2011.
2010: Biden claims credit for winning Iraq: “I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”
The story of the loneliness of Churchill in the 1930′s shows that moral relativism is not a post modern phenomenon, but of all times and driven by opportunism and fear.
The 1930′s was one of those decades where the Left was in government in most democracies. Moral clarity and mental toughness is apparently not their thing
Why try so hard, VDH, when it’s so easy – greeted as liberators, a war paid for with Iraqi oil, north south east and west of Baghdad, pretty much confirmed Atta was in Prague (I didn’t say that) . . . and bombs are still going off in Iraq . . . and Americans are still dying in Iraq . . . where we “won” the war . . . Bidenisms? Just more distraction and assertion aimed at burnishing the permanently stained image of Bush and the right wing’s misadventures in greed. A sad and transparent glimpse into psyche of denial, the fear of accountability, and the belief that a lie believed is not a lie at all.
What a waste.
I believe it was nine days after 9/11 that George W.Bush made the best speech of his life.
He said we were going to fight. He was as good as his word.
Glad we had him as President. He got us pointed in the right direction, got us off on the right foot and made it next to impossible to turn back. Good job.
As a result we remain in overall good shape
and poised to ride out this latest wave of religious fanaticism and to do so in a way that will permanently suppress if not eliminate effective opposition to our way of life.
The opposition makes Chamberlain look resolute, Petain steadfast and Quisling patriotic.
Like Winston, The Man From Midland was there when he was needed. Good enough for me.
I suspect that at least part of the reason the politicians can game the war the way they do is because, over all, these are very small wars. In WWII, both of my grandfathers served, and most of their brothers either volunteered, or were drafted, and either served, or were in training when the war ended. This war, there was one guy at work who apparently got called up, but I don’t know him personally.
People tend to be less interested in thing that don’t impact them or their circle directly, and the further removed an observer is from an action, the harder it becomes to interpret the results, in a compounding manner. (This is, incidentally why I suspect that free-market systems will always out perform command economies, but that’s a tangent).
These two wars are at least as much about persuasion and interpretation as they are about taking and holding ground, and perhaps much more.
Voyager
There is a rational and levelheaded reason to question Joe Biden’s sanity. He continuously accuses a dead man of killing his wife while drunk in a traffic accident. Investigators insist, however, that this is total nonsense. Biden’s wife was responsible for the crash—and the man completely sober. He was the innocent victim! The MSM chose to ignore this well-known incident during the presidential campaign. It alone should have prevented Biden’s selection as Obama’s running mate. There is also little doubt that the American voters would have rejected the ticket had they known about Biden’s disturbing behavior. As matter of fact, this story is so well hidden that I suspect many readers of Victor Davis Hanson’s blog might be unaware of it.
“What a strange time we live in…?”
How about downright “sickening”?
“what a strange time we live in”
Strange doesn’t even begin to offer an understanding: Sad would be closer to my thinking. Sad that we have allowed a class of professional politicians to become more than a reality, they have become an energy force that is driving this country into areas never before experienced.
Debt…the i.o.u. which will never be paid off just could be the spark to start another world war.
I hope this thinking is wrong… History suggests it might not be so far off the mark.
And you, Professor, live within the world of history.
“Churchill was(is) the ultimate un-Biden”. I love that. I hope you don’t mind if I add that to my email signature (with proper attribution) as it’s sure to stimulate some interesting comments.
Biden is to Churchill as a sponge is to a brick.
Nothing moves like Biden on Iraq except a serpent.
Poker game highlights:
(biden) off suited 7 and 2: “I’m all in” he says, fake teeth reflecting the light, plugs quivering, and his fake smile telegraphing he has absolutely nothing. Not in his hand, not in his brain, and not in his heart – and so he says, not in his bank account.
Dr. Hanson, a sometime poker player, but a man, always on his game, simply says, with a pair, “I call”.
Eloquently, precisely, and without flinching, Hanson with the stroke of a pen, while contributing to the greater good, educating (for real!), growing raisins, and clear in his heart and mind, from California, takes the pretender biden, out of the game.
If the American people fail to follow suit thus November, and shackle this shameful empty joke of a veep, the country will deserve everthing it gets.
The POTUS and the VP are a good match, both believe themselves to be intellectual and all knowing.
Unfortunately, both are intellectual lightweights and are decidedly ill prepared for their current roles in government.
Biden has always considered himself as a military expert – although never having spent even one day in the military, or even a job connected with the military.
And Obama equally clothes himself as a economic guru, while daily demonstrating that he can’t rub two nickles together without screwing things up.
My biggest question about the two of them though is where are their ‘handlers’ – where are those people who are employed to specifically provide common sense and direction to their utterances? One would think that someone would tell Obama not to say ‘that’, as he has already said just the opposite just weeks ago … or to tell Biden not to make that statement because it is factually incorrect and easily checked!
Obama should have stuck with ‘community organizing’ and Biden with plagiarism – activities in which they seem to have had great prowess.
Dr. Hanson:
As you so accurately observe, if America made the mistake of listening to Joe Biden and Barack Obama, we would surely have lost–or never engaged in–every conflict since 1990 and the world would be a very different, and much more dangerous, place. But this is true of most liberals since Harry Truman, JFK being something of an exception. Had people like Biden and John Kerry, Ted Kennedy (who actually committed treason by offering to work with the Soviets to undermine Reagan) and Barack Obama been in charge, not only would we still be fighting the Cold War, the Soviets might well have won. And as you say, no doubt with people like them in charge, we would have lost WWII and much of the world, perhaps even America, would now be speaking German.
Winston Churchill was a man of vision, courage, resolution and character. It is this, and more that our President lacks. Joe Biden? Had he lived in Lincoln’s time, it might well have been he that Lincoln had in mind when he said: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.” As you say, one expects politicians to be mendacious, but Biden’s comments, no doubt reflecting the thinking and beliefs of his boss, is outside the bounds of decency, even humanity, and reveals the profound and debilitating lack of character present in so many in the Obama administration from the top down.
Recall Cassius, who upon killing Caesar called himself Caesar’s friend for cutting off twenty years of Caesar’s life during which he would have to fear death. Recall too Fallstaff who stabbed a dead enemy in the thigh to cover his cowardice and to associate himself with real warriors
Let’s not forget that Biden also said that the Iraq war was a waste and should never have been fought, and he said it on Sunday. On one hand he spits on those who gave the final, full measure of devotion and with the other stabs the inanimate enemy and shamelessly claims the military triumph for himself.
On President’s day it might be good to remember the nobility of a distinctly American president, Abraham Lincoln, who wrote a letter to a mother who had lost, if memory serves, five sons in the war. He knew, and wrote, that no words of his could ever ease the agony of a faithful American mother who had placed such a costly sacrifice on the altar of liberty. And then we have Obama, who tries to compare himself to Lincoln, through his feckless mouthpiece Joe Biden, telling today’s Gold Star mothers that their costly sacrifices were in vain, meaningless, while over the corpses of their sons claiming the credit due far, far better men. What small, craven, feckless men we’ve elected to rule us.
And I thought that my opinion of Obama, Biden and everyone associated with them could not possibly be lower…
Maybe Teh Won removed Churchill’s bust because it reminded him that his daddy was a national of a British colony?
Very perspicacious. Applying today’s lack of standards to a conflict like WWII shows how perfidious they, and the politicians who espouse them, really are.
As you indicate, Barry tried to vote present as long as he could on the campaign in Iraq until he thought he saw an opening. Halo Joe was. as always, just plain wrong. They wanted gravitas, they got Abbott and Costello.
With another Democrat stepping down there is a greater chance voices of common sense and reason will prevail over the strange nature of our leadership now…Reid-’We Lost’, Pelosi-’CIA lied’, Obama-’guns and religion’, Biden…
The problem with stopping this run away train of a government will be the sparks and shrieking as the wheels grate to a stop on the tracks.
Smoking Joe is high up in Obama’s inner circle of intellectuals, along with Moe, Curly and Shep. It was a toss-up whether to choose him as VP or Secretary of Entertainment. And whatever happened to our beloved fatuous Hollywood bloviators? Snowed into silence?
Churchill also hammered Parliament about the Kaizer’s plans for war prior to WWI. No one listened. War started, and they stopped ridiculing him, and made him First Lord of the Admiralty. Then they rejected him after the war and he went “into the wilderness”.
WWII was a complete replay. They rejected him again after the war and returned, as Hayek documents in detail, to the pre-war national socialist schemes which continue in vogue today.
There ain’t no Churchill now, baby.
I’m not sure which metaphor best applies to this comparison of Churchill and Biden. While instructive, it seems … perhaps … unnecessary roughness? Late hit after the play? It might be more sporting to compare Biden with a mid-20th-Century one-term state representative from one of the big square flyover states, because this business of comparing him to Churchill is dangerous to people in their offices who are susceptible to loud laughter.
I remember from a very old TV Amos ‘n Andy, someone asks Andy, “How duz I know who to vote for?” “Well”, says Andy,”Most folks vote the way their parents voted. I vote republican, cuz my parents voted republican. Now your parents voted democrat”. “So I should vote democrat?” “No, you’s also a republican, cuz your parents didn’t get nuthini’ right their whole lives!”
Joe Biden’s inane comments are a manifestation of increased intracranial pressure the consequence of inward growing hair follicle implants, aggravated by the known neurological effects of one botox injection too many, compounded by repeated nuclear dental whitening. To subject such a small cranial mass to so many assaults explains his reduced mental capacity. A brain is a terrible thing to waste.
Awww, come on Victor. The liberals don’t have principles.
Everything, and I mean everything is relative, soft, movable, etc.
Liberals don’t want principles or standards or anything that looks like morals. It’s all about feeling good doing something. Doesn’t matter whether or not that “something” actually works. The problem that people like Biden have is that things like YouTube chronicle all their different positions and they come off looking like idiots. Like honesty, principles are something you stick to when nobody is watching… If you have them, that is.
the present administration in the white house will continue to give you material for your essays VDH.
he is nothing but the vilest of opportunists.
he will carry anybodies water, lies are just his language. he is so duplicitous I would take him for a Muslim if I didn’t know he was a fraudulent christian.
Great article, Professor.
As mentioned, the more I read of W. Churchill the more enamored I become.
There are many references to W. Churchill in everyday reading.
In the recent Scientific American Mind, there’s a quick piece on W. Churchill calming Kiwi James Allen Ward who was receiving a Victoria Cross for his bravery on a particular mission.
-”You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence,” Churchill began.
-”Yes Sir,” replied Ward. “I do”.
-Then you can imagine,” Churchill said, “how humble and awkward I feel in yours”.
A giant among men..
Biden is a famous “claim jumper”. Man has no shame because he truly is a stranger to the truth and has had a very small life. Like anyone who needs afirmation he forgets what he says and twists the issues, facts, timing, data frequently. No one takes him seriously, not even
Bill or Hillary.
“One can only draw the conclusion that the last eight years of acrimony were always just about politics and power, never principles.”
In the US political paradigm, the lefts focus for decades has always been about power and control. The end justifies the means as it were, but to what end was never fully explained and lost any meaning over time. Power became the “end” full circle. History is littered with the results of similiar attempts of the same ideological breathern, but in a supposedly open Republic such as ours, one would assume that lofty aspirations as to what our nation’s goals were would require facts, truth, honest discussions and debate to what are we trying to actually achieve. These are not attributes of the left. Power and control are the goals, freedom and decentralized decision making are the antithesis to these goals.
The general welfare of the country was always an after thought, if at all, and the unquestioning continuation of the statist ideology and dead-end policies were to be shoved forward without reflection. Any opponent challenging the left are attacked and demonized which resembles all the characteristics of a cult.
Thats were we are today and its all coming unravelled before our very eyes.
Ol Joe reminds me of the muses, comedy and drama.
Biden is a joke.
I’m somewhat surprised the media had turned on him like Dan Quayle.
The Obamanuts and the left wing moonbats remind me very much of watching dogs chase cars when I was younger my father very wiely said said ‘why do they do that what will they do if they ever catch one’.
Well now the ‘libtards’ have metaphorically ‘caught their car’ and isn’t it pathetic watching them squirm as they don’t know how to drive it or to service it or what to do with it.
skeeziks, you do realize, like BC, every comment you post has NOTHING to do with the article, right?
As for ‘a war paid for with Iraqi oil’ comment – is the U.S. getting more crude? How about at a cheaper price? ‘No’ on both counts.
I love the ‘pretty much confirmed’ assertion regarding Atta. Apparently, ‘pretty much’ is ‘oh yeah, definitely’ in liberal-speak.. sad.
Lastly, THE WAR IS WON. Skirmishes are bound to occur in a fragile republic where democracy is in its infancy. Examples..
The War of 1812, Mexican-American War, The Civil War, The Spanish-American War are wars that occurred AFTER the U.S. became a nation. The War of 1812 taking place 30 + years afterward. The Spanish-American War is considered fought on U.S. soil for some of it taking place in Puerto Rico though I don’t agree with that summation.
You may want to cease with your juvenile, over-the-top ignorance. Your only proving to be another failed experiment of the public education system..
I’d meant ‘You’re’.. Almost had a ‘..teapot calling the kettle..’ moment.
14. Chris in Toronto:
Maybe Teh Won removed Churchill’s bust because it reminded him that his daddy was a national of a British colony?
I think you may be on to something.
plus he hates Americas enemies …so it’s a two-for
We can no longer state openly the true state of affairs: Joe Biden is a retard. Uh oh, a police car just pulled up at my door. Gotta run.
Listen, I am NO fan of Joe Biden.
But Biden just might be right. This could be a huge success. All Obama needs to do is continue the successful Iraq plan as laid out by Bush; let it conclude and succeed and he gets credit for the success on his watch. And as a bonus, he gets credit for being wise enough to continue a good plan.
If it fails, he just blames Bush and says it was all he could do with what he inherited – he had no other reasonable alternatives. Either way, he wins. I credit him for continuing a winning strategy and for being wise enough to adopt it during his administration.
And that is how Joe Biden might be accurate about this being the one thing that Obama will have as a stunning success in his first term – letting a Bush policy play out unimpeded. It will be the only time he won’t say Bush Did It.
Biden has earned his place in the Preparation Hall of Fame. Bravo, Joe. Keep fighting the good fight.
Biden is proof that an organism doesn’t need a functioning brain to be alive.
Sweet candor sir. And, we’ve been paying for this side-swapping behavior for how long? And to whose benefit? Biden is simply lying everytime his lips move, or he’s certifiably insane. And he’s second-in-line? And they sent him out to refute Cheney?
The Obama administration overall reminds me of a particular act in the old three-ring circus. A small gaudily-colored car drives up into one of the rings. A squirming pile of a dozen or more little clownish figures falls out one at a time. They engage in slapstick pranks and hijinks of one kind or another. They are clad in droll raiment. One is costumed as a cowboy, one a hobo, one a chimp in a sequined usher’s uniform, etc.
One, an exception, is long, lanky, and remarkably flexible and can twist his body into amazing shapes. He puts his right foot into his left pocket. He puts his left arm between his legs and scratches the center his back with it. This is at first amazing to the small children in the audience, but the tall lanky figure quickly becomes a figure of weirdness or even terror to them by his ability to twist and turn in abnormal ways.
The grownups in the audience are at first amused by the performance, then bored, then tired, then repulsed. But the show goes on. It goes on in the matinee and at night. It goes on this year and will go on next, never changing. In the end it is quite tedious and potentially fear-inducing and most adults seem to just want it ended.
Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid. All caught in their own game.
As long as politicians can get away with it, they will continue to do so. It is up to us, the governed, to hold them accountable for what they did.
Bofore 2008 election, majority did not even bother to pay attention to politics. Year 2009 was a whole different story. Even the younguns started noticing inconsistencies.
We do need more VDH’s and the like to continue to do what journalists won’t do.
If Cheney is Darth Vader, then Biden is Jar Jar Binks.
“a liberal president ordering the execution of dozens of suspected terrorists in mud brick compounds abroad”
Is there some news story I missed somewhere? I did some checking around the web and could only come up with a hoax report from “Sorcha Faal” who apparently is a “Weekly World News” style hoax reporter who’s real name is David Booth.
Excellent summary Mr. Hanson. However, you forgot the ultimate Biden hedge:
During the Vice Presidential Debate with Sarah Palin, Biden said that he voted to give Bush the power to go to war against Iraq, but he never thought Bush would use it.
# 40, Always right
The problem with 2008 election was the fact that most of the votes were give to obama by younger generation, over-educated ignorant kids, who sit on mom and dad dime and can afford liberal philosophies.
This time, I think even these boys and girls are getting the sense that they made a mistake. Apparently, mom’s and dad’s can not support them in these endeavors for higher knowledge and philosophical aspirations.
We should be so fortunate, to have young once get smarter.
Many of those on the left are not grounded in anything of real benefit and substance – i.e. creating something of value in the private sector, competing day-by-day for the vote of a customer’s pocketbook, eventually managing a group of people to do the same, and, if in the few percent of uniquely energetic and able, creating their own business and dealing with all the issues of creation and helping others achieve, making payroll, navigating regulation and taxes while another likeminded individual is trying to take it all away from you (your competition). Would that anything in government resembled this – turns out that there is this kind of competition but we refuse to behave as if it exists – another world-war – and now that technology enables the few to destroy as much as what used to require a nation state, a major terrorist event.
What is sad is that government is generally such an unimportant footnote in our lives (we may think about it a lot but we act on it seldom – my sense is that it really is less important than what most adults spend on entertainment, or their yearly holiday – a 5% issue) that those that run for office are not blooded, they have few if any of the these real-world experiences. I think there is an explanation for Mr. B and Mr. O’s positions, and it’s that they vary based on the last visit or sales pitch they had by someone with an interest in an area or issue. Conservatives are accused of greed when their only interest is winning the affection of the populace with what they create, the socialists want to benefit from this wealth creation as well but they see it as a waste of time to compete when they can just dictate a winning position.
Both of these men were entangled legislatively in the oil question in Iraq. Far more than Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney in oil companies and their suppliers. And it was true in Mr. Clinton’s time as well. Mr. Gore is largely responsible for the Enron mess given he (and Mr. Clinton as well) assured the senior leadership there that not only could they continue to arbitrage the foolish regulations that deregulated consumption and not production, but that carbon trading was coming – and they could make book on it. Now we see a different, but same degree of fraud in European cap and trade tax incentives. I suspect this is what the people get when they spend less than 5% of their time providing management direction (and coaching) for their employees – the politicians in each of these countries.
Biden lost his bid for president telling what tom sawyer called ‘stretchers’. He is obama’s court jester–able to be candid because he is not taken seriously.
His role is comic relief, and I simply can’t get the energy to wring my hands about whatever nonesense he belches forth one any given day.
Easy on Biden…he DID have a lobotomy, remember? The fact that his synapses fire counter-intuitively needs not be mentioned. Now, as for Skeeziks, that is just raw, primal stupidity of the most Baghdad-Bob-ish variety. Cognitive Dissonance, thy name is Skeeziks.
One can only conclude that liberals are either stupid or totally consumed by self-interest.
Biden is a comical example of course, but he never had much of a following. The most interesting thing about him is that he seems to think his purpose in life is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a politician who acts happy and confident can get away with saying literally anything. Either that or he is clinically delusional.
Obama is more worrisome. The ease with which he persuaded 52% of the country to vote for him despite the overwhelming evidence of his radical beliefs and his shocking lack of any experience whatsoever is horrifying. And here we are 15 months later, and 40-45% of the public still claims to think he is an honorable person worthy to lead the country, even though the evidence is undeniable of his incompetance, horrible judgement, and stubborn radicalism. The percentage is probably overstated by 5% or so becuase many people are too afraid of being called a racist to say anything against him, but still….it doesn’t inspire confidence in the intelligence of the voting public.
You can’t think about this matter for very long without getting depressed about what lies ahead for the country.
You also have to wonder whether the best approach to save the country might be to develop our own policy of deceipt. It’s impossible to deny that the con artists win more often than not.
Joe Biden, like Jack Murtha and a few others are a throw back to a by-gone era. He is a tough cookie and stands his ground, which gets no respect these days. Like the radical right, their working man ethos no longer carried any weight. People are no longer so much as class warfare as they are…my ownass warfare. The collective is gone … but folks dont respect greed so much any more either.
Bless Ya Joe, you should have been from Detroit, instead of Delaware..
Too little atention is being given to the execution of those who are said to be Taliban or Al Quaida leaders by means of drones. We know nothing except that they afre called enemy. It is one thing to inflict casualties on an enemy in a combat situation. It is another to inflict death or grave injury upon opponents, and those with them, not then engaged in actual combat. In WWII the United States Navy intercepted and decoded Japanese communications suggesting that Adm Yamamoto and his staff would be arriving in Rabaul in two planes without fighter escort on a specified fdate and at a specified time. (I believe that Rabaul was his destination though I am not sure). The question was: would it be a proper war time act to intercept those planes and destroy them, with the specific intent of killing Adm Yamamoto, even though he at the moment of interception was not engaged in combat activity. There was extensive debate before the decision was made to proceed with the interception. Several P-38s made the interception; both Japanese planes were shot down and Admiral Yamamoto was killed. This matter is still debated on the point oif propriety. Opponents of the interception call it “assassination.”
VDH, there is a site that contains all of the Gore, Albright, Cohen, Berger quotes, statements, pronouncements…about Saddam Hussein being the greatest threat to America and the world. Cohen went on the Sunday morning press circuit with a prop…a five pound bag of flour…representing anthrax.
They voted in regime change.
Then a Republican got elected to the Presidency…and all of a sudden…Saddam was no threat at all.
Frat House leadership, where it is more important to score points politically than to actually serve the public…is the second worst element of trying to self-govern this land of ours. (the first, is the stolen information stream, where we can’t get honest facts upon which to make even a single, solitary important decision. We can’t trust our entrenched media, or entertainment, academia…they are the den mothers of the democratic frat house.)
Biden is pure Frat House politics. Sir Gaffe-a-lot may seem to be scattered and inconsistent…but, if you get to know him, you realize, he’s lost.
Well, you are right. 9/11 and afterwards is where they lost me. As liberal as my opinions may be, I feel the Democratic Party used a strategy to gain power at a time of extreme national need. The paucity of decency in street leftists was revealed more throughly than all their ongoing hypocrisy concerning the rights of women or anything else. Even this pathetic charge of racism when anyone disagrees with the left is mortifying. Real discrimination can harm lives, the way they throw the term about now trivializes it.
VDH:
“One can only draw the conclusion that the last eight years of acrimony were always just about politics and power, never principles.”
The lack of principle is obvious, but even worse it is also obvious to our enemies. Because our enemies realized this even before Obama was elected, they have had ample time to prepare, and they have used his lack of principle to their advantage. Iran is one example, but China has also ‘used’ Obama in ways he has yet to understand or acknowledge.
This may be one of Obama’s most outrageous self-deceptions — that War can be made to be just or unjust, simply by changing the President that is prosecuting it.
Unfortunately for us, Obama’s skin has grown to a thickness that makes him immune to most of the rational consequences of his actions, so there is not much hope that he can or will change his ways. Obama would like to believe that he is flexible, but with each passing day more evidence emerges of his rather narrow views on most issues.
Good article Dr. VDH. Biden is what one would classify as a second-rate sociopath. He certainly lacks the IQ to be first-rate. He actually believes that because he says something it therefore magically becomes true. He is not smart enough to keep track of his own inconsistancies as would the first-rate variety. The news media has no interest in juxtaposing his statements. What clowns. Keep him talking.
Poor Joe.
Those hair-plugs taken from his buttocks have entered his brain and when he gets a haircut it causes his mouth to quiver unbelievable quotes.
Sir Winston Churchill-
- Me.
Dr. Hanson, you need to run for office. Your brilliance and moral clarity are sorely needed, especially here in Mexifornia. You’d be following in the quixotic footsteps of Bill Buckley (who famously said when asked what he’d do if he won the mayoralty campaign, “I’d demand a recount!”) Even my Silicon Valley children admire your writing (grudgingly). Imagine the opportunity to raise the IQ of the entire electorate! This could be your moment. Carpe diem!
VDH:
Maybe when Joe Biden retires, we can find a residential facility for incurable schizophrenics and rename it:
“The Biden Institute”
That aside, you’re old enough to remember Spiro Agnew…don’t you just love that he chose to be reincarnated as a Delaware Democrat rather than a Maryland Republican again?
Always good for a laugh…
Lying? Sleazits Javvv – eeee – linnnn. Lying? Lying? Lying. Liar.
“I could lie about it from here to next Thursday, what difference would it make?”
“… sputter such manifestly disingenuous crap…”
“Got a love a man with convictions.”
And so many personalities.
2. skeeziks.
“A sad and transparent glimpse into psyche of denial, the fear of accountability, and the belief that a lie believed is not a lie at all.”
Sad indeed. The Lying Modern Liberal Hall of Fame Cesspool has little room left. Maybe Mr. President will spring for some badly needed do do money. A trillion or two? Certainly more room is need. Global warming? Truth all over the place there. Right?
Hey, Nobody really meant that… They just got lost. I have a New Health Plan for all of YOU PEOPLE. Just die. But first, dig your own grave. Mr. President needs more $$$$. And more. And more.
In its own words…
35. skeeziks
“You people…”
“By all means, set aside your principles and your true convictions in favor plausible deniability. You people are such chickenshits.No wonder nobody respects you.”
Jan 30, 2010 – 12:55 pm
6. skeeziks
“You realize, of course, when you sputter such manifestly disingenuous crap crap that you cast a pall over all of your comments. You create a credibility problem…”
Jan 26, 2010 – 9:13 pm
139. Moho
“I could lie about it from here to next Thursday, what difference would it make?”
Nov 4, 2009 – 8:01 pm
20. skeeziks
“You people… “.
Jan 30, 2010 – 9:58 am
69. skeeziks.
“You people…”
Jan 29, 2010 – 9:05 am
38. moho
“…you people… “.
Jan 8, 2010 – 5:38 pm
“Got a love a man with convictions.”
129. skeeziks:
Got a love a man with convictions.
Hail Rush! Go Sarah! Onward Scott!
Jan 28, 2010 – 7:51 am
Now and Then:
Hail Rush, Go Sarah!
Dec 7, 2009 – 5:35 pm
“You people sure know how to pick your saviors”.
Moho
“But I actually knew Jones in his communist days…,”
Sep 4, 2009 – 8:43 pm
Moho
“My son’s a bit old to be looking for a mentor, and I doubt Van Jones will be mentoring him since he’s in the marines and currently stationed in Iraq.”
Sep 4, 2009 – 8:43 pm
“You don’t know what Kyber likes, only Kyber does.”
You don’t know what Javelin likes, only Javelin does.”
How’s Van Jones doing? The muggers, where the hell are they? Has Kyber taught you any manners yet? Sign up for Wannabe Jihad camp? The warm season is near.
Whatever.
I took a Con Law class that Biden taught at Widener some 20 years ago and the students were so much smarter then him it was sad. At some point you reach a level where your bs approach just does not cut it. And this was a barely accredited law school.
Mike McDaniel @13. Great. Lincoln quotation, laced with irony, still has me laughing!
Grades inflation, pervasive cheating, priviledged student payoffs, affirmative action…. it’s not a conspiracy and the evidence is that most chose and still support the President. What an extraordinarily weak perspective of American voters.
Decades of distortion in education has lead to this result. That is the undermining element that can only be undone, short term, by most
of the public experiencing pain to move away from. IMHO.
21. genghis, would there be one to waste.
The immutable laws – there are three:
1. you can’t fix ugly
2. you can’t fix stupid
3. one and two are always true.
Jolly Joe, sheezstiks, poor citizens, moho … a cast of immutables.
And for all the plastique and physiological sculpting in the world, nancy pelosi is still ugly -
We make fun of Obama, but if he gets Bin Laden dead or alive, he is re elected. The surge in Afghanistan will get more and more intense and they must be doing something right if they just got the Talibans number two.
Because learning from what’s happening and deciding that maybe a change in approach is needed must be a really stupid thing to do, eh? Because people who claim to be all-knowing and relentless in their single-minded approach are sure to gain success, right?
Blowhard.
Did any body else notice that both Biden and Palin are equally idiotic?
Politicians have no respect for us – they are all liars and thieves.
The frightening part is, this flipflop artist is only one heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Has Biden done anything about his motorcade killing that pedestrian in DC? The US media seemed to miss that one… And the fact he nearly did it again at the Olympics.
13. Mike McD:
“Had he lived in Lincoln’s time, it might well have been he that Lincoln had in mind when he said: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.” ”
Mike, it had to be said for jumpin’ joe biden … Hillarious!
It’s that or cry.
_______________________________
21. genghis:
“A brain is a terrible thing to waste.”
This presupposes brain matter and it’s level of function. The “minister of entertainment”, Joe the V.P. is somewhere between conscious and vegetative state.
_______________________________
36. cabeza de vaca:
“Biden is proof that an organism doesn’t need a functioning brain to be alive.”
Maybe he’s an alien!?
Is it possible, if he is human, that he can be an organism and a parasite conincidentally?
_______________________________
30. paul_unalaska:
“You’re only proving to be another failed experiment of the public education system..”
I had the dope as a Harvard graduate based on his comments.
_______________________________
59. Mr Lucky
Case dismissed. No further questions your honour… skeeziks, moho, javelin are officially cerebral defecators.
I mean, seriously, has this Veep of ours been tested for Alzheimer’s? His nonsensical ramblings are similar to stage 1 of AD. And at 68 he’s the right age for it to start manifesting…
From one who knows….
Now you know why biden was on the ticket; to draw the stupid-white-male vote.
“Regan proved deficits don’t matter” – Dick Cheney
I’m going to the bathroom to produce a better president and veep.
49. Poor Citizen:
Dr. Hanson provided ample, high-profile examples of how over decades Biden has flipped, flopped, pirouetted and contorted himself into so many different positions on so many different matters of public policy… and curiously you view him as someone who “stands his ground.” That’s pretty odd.
Prof Hanson,
You and many others who decry Obama’s execution of ‘alleged’ terrorists in Pakistan always forget something: That unfailingly when those “alleged” goat herders are sent to meet their virgins there is always collateral damage. Usually women and children.
Surely the Europeans will be clamoring for his head as a murderer to be tried in the Hague for the unspeakable war crimes he is perpetrating. Where is that Spanish judges’ indictment? We must have it quickly to scale back the carnage of innocents.
Can’t civilized society come together to stand witness to Barack Obama’s Crimes against Humanity? I believe the next President should carefully consider his responsibility and commission a commission to study the issue and if necessary turn over ex-President Obama to face his favorite type of trial, the Nuremberg kind.
I admire you greatly Prof Hanson, but why does it take an Australian like me to tell you that you omitted the obvious link – that both GWBUSH and CHENEY acted very like Churchill throughout all these momentous events! If even fine men like you can’t champion your own, who do you expect to do so, and where will you find the next leaders you so much need?