Joe Biden Cuts Through Bush's Usual Spin
We all know the Bush Administration is hoping to fumble Iraq into the hands of the next president. And we all know it's no way to run a country. Joe Biden is more than willing to work with the White House on foreign policy but he has had it with playing word games, political games and posturing; here's the story by Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler in The News Journal:
Of course, Biden doesn't say whether the president admits Iraq is lost or not; after all, Bush has spent most of the last three years in his special bubble. But I keep thinking back to the summit in Russia last summer when Bush's rigid ideology seemed less important than the fact that he came across as an ineffectual leader. Maybe Cheney really is minding the store but he is ineffectual for his own set of reasons, including his belief that the executive branch should be completely free to do what it wants, a clear violation of the US Constitution.
This is new territory for all of us. At no time since the rise of American power in the early 1940s have we had such an incompetent and reckless president with no advisers to steer him on a pragmatic course. No one truly knows how to handle such a situation. Certainly, for a variety of reasons, Republicans in Congress were willing to ignore the growing list of blunders by the Bush Administration. And of course, things only got worse. In fact, John McCain, a man once known for his integrity, is more than willing these days to exploit the situation for the 2008 race.
Americans are going to have to be patient in the coming weeks and months. Impeachment is off the table for now, though things could change if the recklessness and abuse of power continue or things are uncovered that angers the American people enough to demand impeachment. What most Americans seem to want is a course correction, and some acknowledgement that the people, after all, are the ones ultimately in charge.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam."I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," Biden said. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."
Biden made the comments as he outlined an ambitious agenda for the committee, including holding four weeks of hearings focused on every aspect of U.S. policy in Iraq. ...
Of course, Biden doesn't say whether the president admits Iraq is lost or not; after all, Bush has spent most of the last three years in his special bubble. But I keep thinking back to the summit in Russia last summer when Bush's rigid ideology seemed less important than the fact that he came across as an ineffectual leader. Maybe Cheney really is minding the store but he is ineffectual for his own set of reasons, including his belief that the executive branch should be completely free to do what it wants, a clear violation of the US Constitution.
This is new territory for all of us. At no time since the rise of American power in the early 1940s have we had such an incompetent and reckless president with no advisers to steer him on a pragmatic course. No one truly knows how to handle such a situation. Certainly, for a variety of reasons, Republicans in Congress were willing to ignore the growing list of blunders by the Bush Administration. And of course, things only got worse. In fact, John McCain, a man once known for his integrity, is more than willing these days to exploit the situation for the 2008 race.
Americans are going to have to be patient in the coming weeks and months. Impeachment is off the table for now, though things could change if the recklessness and abuse of power continue or things are uncovered that angers the American people enough to demand impeachment. What most Americans seem to want is a course correction, and some acknowledgement that the people, after all, are the ones ultimately in charge.
posted by Craig at 11:09 PM
2 Comments:
I have never thought much of Biden as a presidential contender, but he has always been an informative and entertaining Senate leader. In this instance of exposing the Bush-Cheney game plan, he is brilliant, way ahead of the media and pundits.
Vigilante, thanks for the comments. You're right about the brilliance of exposing Bush and his noise machine.
Joe Biden, of course, doesn't have much chance of winning but I favor people running who have something to say whether it's Kucinich or Biden. The media spin is that the Democrats don't know who they are but there has often been a healthy debate and a synthesizing process among Democrats that shapes the final outcome. Once in a blue moon, the Republicans use the same process and they get a Lincoln rather than a Decider-in-Chief.
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