Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
Remember Joe Biden's Fearless Leadership in the Iraq War Debate? Me Neither.
Over at National Review Online, Gene Healy tears into Sen. Joe Biden's (D-Del.) sorry record of constitutional shirking in the run-up to the Iraq War:
After voting for the resolution, prominent members of Congress insisted they hadn't voted to use force.
[...]
Biden's post-hoc rationalizations for his vote follow the same pattern. "If I had known this administration would be so incompetent," he told interviewer Charlie Rose in 2004, "I never would have given them the authority to try to avoid the war," which is an interesting way to describe a resolution titled "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq." In fact, Biden is at least as complicit in the decision to go to war as is Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Biden joined with McCain to defeat an amendment offered by Senator Carl Levin that would have forced President Bush to get U.N. Security Council approval before launching the invasion.
It's still hard to get a firm answer from Biden as to whether he supported the invasion and occupation of a country that represented no serious threat to the United States. But he insists that he was firmly against botching the job. Well . . . who wasn't?
In a more perfect world, Biden (and the rest of his Democratic accomplices) would experience some blowback over that. Alas.
TallDave|9.26.08 @ 5:07PM|#
Hey, give Biden credit though: he was right out in front in declaring the surge a failure. And Obama introduced legislationt to stop it, so give him some props for perspicacity as well.
|9.26.08 @ 5:12PM|#
Good point, TallDave.
Don't forget, everybody: Biden and Obama pushed for us to withdraw
from Iraq years ago, while McCain was urging us to get in deeper
and stay longer.
|9.26.08 @ 5:23PM|#
It's not as bad as when Julius Cesar gave that great speech at
Yankee Stadium urging restraint against going to war with the
Confederates.
But it's pretty bad.
|9.26.08 @ 5:25PM|#
I do, however, remember Biden's leadership during the War of 1812, as he stood there with his Colt Navy revolver and exhorted everyone to protect the White House.
Terry Michael|9.26.08 @ 5:27PM|#
Some of us who have been professional Democrats, including a
former DNC press secretary (me), have also had something to say
about the utter failure of the senior windbag from Delaware to make
a principled case against the criminal enterprise in Iraq when it
counted--BEFORE the damned thing was authorized by politically
spineless "foreign policy experts" like Joe Biden:
Where Are The Democrats?
When it comes to Iraq, the opposition party is afraid to oppose.
(March 2007)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118523.html
and....
The Perils of Hoping Against Hope
How Joe Biden undermines Obama's campaign for "change" (August 25,
2008)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/128255.html
In order to avoid the disaster of warrior drama queen John McCain
as president, and perhaps realize the potential of Barack Obama,
some of us have to hold our noses when it comes to the Joe Biden's
of the "foreign policy expert" community in these ten square miles
surrounded by reality.
|9.26.08 @ 5:28PM|#
Don't forget, everybody: Biden and Obama pushed for us to
withdraw from Iraq years ago,
Back when it would have ensured utter failure, rather than the
tentative success we have now. Seriously. Don't forget that.
My favorite, though, is Biden claiming that the surge was really
his idea, because he was the guy pushing the partition of Iraq.
TallDave|9.26.08 @ 5:30PM|#
When I left Baghdad two years ago, the nation's social
fabric seemed too shredded to ever come together again. The very
worst had lost its power to shock. To return now is to be jarred in
the oddest way possible: by the normal, by the pleasant, even by
hope. The questions are jarring, too. Is it really different now?
Is this something like peace or victory? And, if so, for whom: the
Americans or the Iraqis?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/weekinreview/21filkins.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
It'll be fun watching Obama parse his way around admitting he was
wrong on the surge again tonight. I also look forward to hearing
Biden explain how when Lincoln crossed the Delaware, he did a
webcast explaining how the United States should be partitioned into
three separate countries.
TallDave|9.26.08 @ 5:31PM|#
because he was the guy pushing the partition of
Iraq.
Well, to be fair, he DID unite the Iraqis... against his plan.
|9.26.08 @ 5:38PM|#
In a more perfect world, Biden (and the rest of his
Democratic accomplices) would experience some blowback over
that.
Supporting a war and then fucking it up is always going to get more
blowback than supporting a war and then regretting it.
|9.26.08 @ 5:55PM|#
"In a more perfect world, Biden (and the rest of his Democratic
accomplices) would experience some blowback over that. Alas."
Well, I do think this is another reason for my "Joe Biden, WTF?"
feelings on his pick. But as most Americans see the war as a
mistake one should point out that Biden now agrees with that while
McCain still does not.
|9.26.08 @ 5:57PM|#
I didn't support the surge either, because I opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. To those who say "hey, you were wrong on the surge" I can easily trump with "uh, yeah but you were wrong on, you know, the war in the first place..."
|9.26.08 @ 6:00PM|#
Again, it's amazing to see folks like Talldave try to tear into Obama for being "wrong on the surge" when he was right on the war and their man was wrong. Any importance the former has is dependent on the latter. It's like arguing "yes I was foolish to decide to keep the dog inside our house all day, but I was right on how to get the dog shit stains off the floor and you were wrong, so there!"
|9.26.08 @ 6:01PM|#
I didn't support the surge either, because I opposed the
Iraq War from the beginning. To those who say "hey, you were wrong
on the surge" I can easily trump with "uh, yeah but you were wrong
on, you know, the war in the first place..."
Exactly.
zoltan|9.26.08 @ 6:04PM|#
Seriously MNG, I don't understand these people patting themselves on the back for the surge. But they're the same ones giving each other hand jobs for "bringing democracy to Iraq!"
BDB|9.26.08 @ 6:06PM|#
"But they're the same ones giving each other hand jobs for
"bringing democracy to Iraq!""
And the same ones still loving the Palin, choice, too.
I'm seeing a pattern here, is anyone else?
|9.26.08 @ 6:10PM|#
I think Biden gets away with being wrong on the war and then changing their mind because that's what most Americans did. In a way, it makes most voters feel better about their opinion.
ed|9.26.08 @ 6:22PM|#
Oh yeah. Iraq! The Thing That Was Supposed To Be The Deciding
Factor™!
All quiet on that front. Strange!
Meanwhile, The Markets™ crashed Monday because Nobody Did
Anything!
I mean Tuesday! Main Street dissed Wall Street and the markets
crashed...
Wednesday! Sorry, it was Wednesday. Breaking News™! If we don't Do
Something...
Nothing happened.
Thursday, and The Meeting Blew Up!™ Chaos! Cats sleeping with dogs!
Humans eating each other!
Friday. Nothing happened. The Markets™ did not melt. Pundits
perplexed. Replay Palin Follies.
Saturday. Rinse. Repeat.
|9.26.08 @ 6:26PM|#
I'm seeing a pattern here, is anyone else?
THere is a word for that : dead-enders.
Paul|9.26.08 @ 6:38PM|#
If only I had known the government would be so incompetent, I
never would have authorized $700 billion for a bailout.
Rinse, repeat.
|9.26.08 @ 7:24PM|#
BDB-I think the Palin fervor is very strange. I mean, if you were a right wing person would you go that crazy for her? Since her selection the number of McCain/Palin bumper stickers I have seen is exponentially higher than the McCain ones I saw previous to it. What in the world substantively was she supposed to have brought that McCain did not already? McCain has a long solid pro-life voting record and a long time solid record on earmarks. He is also an accomplished veteran and war hero. So what is it that Palin is supposed to bring that makes the SIV/TallDave types salivate so? Can it really be things like that she seems so enthusiastic over Jesus, or that there are pictures of her shootin' guns out there? Jesus, people are lemmings...
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245