Kevin Drum asks a question:
Do we really think that being opposed to the war in 2002 should be a litmus test for VP consideration in 2008?
My answer: Yes
It’s as if Mr. Drum missed the entire primary as well as the 2004 and 2006 elections. He offers up Joe Biden as a serious vice-presidential pick without noting that Sen. Biden is one of the foremost proponents of the forcible partition (ethnic cleansing) of Iraq. In essence, Biden’s reaction to the quagmire in Iraq is to have U.S. troops preside over the forced uprooting and resettlement of millions of Iraqis so that Kurds live with Kurds, Shi’ites live with Shi’ites, and Sunnis live with Sunnis. Biden’s plan fits into a category called The Banality of Evil, where good people with good intentions wind up advocating and implementing policies so inhumane that historians wind up pondering how so many decent people could have stood by and done nothing while the evil was carried out right in front of their faces and in their name.
But even if you don’t agree that the tripartite partitioning of Iraq would be a war crime, it is would still involve the necessary ongoing occupation of Iraq for another decade or four. This kind of imperial thinking by our bipartisan foreign policy establishment is exactly what Obama was criticizing when he said:
“I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place.”
Selecting Biden is a non-starter for the precise reason that Biden supported the war (albeit, with misgivings) and that he is still pushing solutions that amount to digging the hole bigger, at best, and that constitute a recipe for enduring national shame, at worst.
I don’t even have to go as far as the war to hate Biden as a VP choice. The bankruptcy bill was enough to disqualify him as far as I’m concerned.
Cheney -> big oil, Haliburton
Clinton -> Monsanto
Biden -> MBNA
Do we really need another VP that are so obviously linked to the welfare of major, power abusing corporations?
Under our current system of campaign finance, almost any conceivable senator from Delaware would have voted for the bankruptcy bill. I don’t like his vote but I also don’t see it as disqualifying. What’s disqualifying is that he doesn’t represent a change from the thinking that got us into Iraq. At all.
Do you think the credit card companies would have the will to go to war against Biden? That would have been risky on their part. And not likely to be successful.
I get the argument though and maybe Biden had no choice.
But economic issues are right behind foreign policy issues (imo) in this election and for me the bankruptcy bill was similar to the privatization of social security issue; it was a core Democratic economic position that can’t be undermined.
The only reason we don’t see what Biden did as a huge a betrayal to Democratic values is that Democrats have largely forgotten their core economic priniciples. You’re right, campaign finance laws caused the Democrats to forget their core economic principles–that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t mean we should nominate the one guy that has blatantly sold out the Democratic party for his corporate overlords. We should avoid the guy that is bought and paid for by the credit card companies.
Biden as VeePee wouldn’t have any compelling reason to remain in the bag to the credit card companies, but he wouldn’t change his imperial assumptions a bit.
Well, if he agrees to give up his Senate seat to run for VP then I would agree with you. But if he is worried about losing the White House then he may not be so eager to give up his parochial concerns. And if I were Obama I would make sure I asked Biden exactly that. If he were willing to repudiate his bankruptcy bill vote then maybe I would consider him. But it better be one heck of a repudiation.
And I don’t yet know that Obama is turned off by Biden’s “imperial assumptions”. Obama may like the rhetorical gravitas Biden brings to the foreign policy debate and may think that Biden will score some foreign policy hits on McCain. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Obama is willing to overlook the imperial motivations to score some hits on McCain.
l agree with boo, biden’s the wrong guy, for a lot of reasons, and l’d be very surprised to see him selected.
if obama wants to bring some gravitas to the foreign policy debate, richardson is a much better choice. he also brings the, so called, western strategy into play in a huge way, not to mention the latin@ vote, and immigration issues, which j-mac is vulnerable on because of his flip flopping.
I agree that Biden is the wrong guy as well. I AM NOT a Biden fan (except I like his rhetorical jabs against Bush and McCain). I just disagree that the Iraq war vote should be the litmus test. To me the litmus test was the bankruptcy bill and the violation of core Democratic economic issues. But I would give Biden the chance to repudiate those votes and come back to the Democratic fold.
I just don’t think it’s smart to impose a litmus test on the initial Iraq vote. For me, as long as a Dem has repudiated that vote and repudiated the Iraq war then they have passed the litmus test.
l didn’t mean to imply you were a biden guy, and overall l agree with your position…especially inre: the bankruptcy bill…that eliminated him from consideration for me, even w/out the albatross of iraq…when you add in all the other baggage he brings, l do not consider him a front runner for the #2 spot.
that said, whether or not you, l, or anyone else, thinks that litmus tests are inadvisable, the truth of the matter is that that’s a position that obama has, de facto staked out. regardless of who the choice might ultimately be, anyone with any connection to the support of the debacle in iraq, repudiations not withstanding, will be a negative on the ticket.
l think obamas’ positioning, and rhetoric to date, pretty much eliminates any sitting senators.
If that’s the case, then no Delaware senator is qualified for national office. His backing of the bankruptcy bill affected ALL Americans.
Ted Stevens was fighting for his constituents when he was battling for the bridge to nowhere, but that doesn’t mean that we forget it if McCain chooses him as VP.
Anyway, you would have to be a fool to sign “foot in mouth” Biden up as your VP. You would have to spend all your air time apologizing for something stupid he said. And what the hell does he really bring you?
Where I really disagree with Drum is where he says that it doesn’t matter who he chooses, he is unlikely to carry any additional states because of his choice.
What if elitist Barak Obama picked someone both blue collar and dirt collar like Jon Tester to show some respect for that demographic? He isn’t the ideal choice in several ways, but I’d be willing to bet that it would swing a few farm states, and possibly even some southern states.
Almost every senator has some provincial cause that leads them to vote against their party from time to time. Leahy and Sanders have milk support, others have ethanol, others have off-shore drilling, others have the automotive industry.
None of it is disqualifying, even though all of it has an effect on every single American.
Absolutely correct. Biden chose his future when he put the interests of MBNA ahead of the average American. The Democratic party of even 20 years ago would have made Biden persona non grata after the bankruptcy vote. I guess liberal punditry has evolved to the point where, when a Democrat votes against a core Democratic principle like Biden did on the bankruptcy bill, he is not punished but instead promoted as a “centrist” suitable for the VP slot.
Boy are liberals bad at politics. They are simply incapable of playing hardball.
It is unconscionable that the Democratic party allowed the bankruptcy bill to pass. They should have demanded party unity as they did on social security (they almost didn’t do that). They need to stand up for one of the few things the public likes about Democrats–protecting the middle class from the GOP giveaways to well-connected corporations and the rich. Biden chose his corporate friends over hard-working families and as such he violated a core belief of liberals.
I actually wrote Biden an e-mail at the time and told him his presidential ambitions were dead because of that vote.
Problem with that is now that DuPont has decamped for China, credit card banking is probably the #1 industry and employer in Delaware, and one that doesn’t have to fill many shipping containers to decamp to Oklahoma or beyond.
Biden’s plan for Iraq strikes me as the modern incarnation of ‘separate but equal’.
I agree, whoever the VP is must have been opposed to the war from the start.
can you explain why you think forcible partitioning is the same as ethnic cleansing?
i ask because i know someone in iraq who says the kurds not only want to be partitioned from the rest of iraq, they expect it.
sure.
First of all, let’s distinguish between organic movement of populations under pressure, and a specific policy-driven campaign of forced relocation.
Iraqis are already self-segregating and fleeing into exile under the pressure of militias and death squads, but this isn’t the official policy of either the U.S. or Iraqi government.
Secondly, let’s acknowledge that what the Kurds (in some collective sense) want is not synonymous with what Iraqis (in some collective sense) want. Kurds have ambitions for an autonomous state that includes pieces of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Would they welcome U.S. assistance in purging Kirkuk of Arabs? Sure. Should we do that? Hell no.
Third, the policy of Obama is to get us out of Iraq ASAP, not to commence a grandiose policy of sectarian and ethnic cleansing coupled with massive amounts of new aid, as Biden has continually advocated.
it seems what biden wants is to avoid ethnic cleansing…and he uses the bosnian example which sounds good to me. i think anyone who thinks we are totally getting out of iraq regardless of who the president is is kidding themselves.
also id really like to hear what people who actually live and/or work in iraq think…..i think i have mentioned before that my best friends son is in iraq….he went there originally as a private contractor for kbr….left them to work for an embassy in iraq….then formed his own contracting corp….his partner is a native iraqi from baghdad….in feb my girlfriend went to her sons wedding in thailand which was attended by quite a few of his employees and friends from iraq….i heard lots of stories about what its really like there…since the wedding no one has been able to get back into baghdad….everyone is either waiting things out in kuwait or in thailand….its just shut down…..my friends son is working mostly with the kurds mainly because its safer and easier to travel there….he mainly supplies villages with foodstuffs like cooking oils….right now he is moving porta potties to some area of iraq where they are doing massive construction on bases and the towns that will be rebuilt around the bases….he is convinced americans arent leaving….no way would they be spending all this money to build bases and new towns and infrastructure around the bases if they were going to pull out. and he believes in the partition plan also….he feels it would make the country much safer and easier to manage…whatever that means. his friends want partitioning…..they kind of have a racist view of things which i guess is not surprising….so if we arent really leaving and the people who actually live there want partitioning then i dont see how we over here in our safe little air conditioned houses can be getting in the way of something that might actually work.
it’s been polled and Iraqis do not want partition. Only a substantial number of Kurds want that, and even then, only in the abstract context of a Utopian greater Kurdistan.
also, your point about Biden wanting to avoid ethnic cleansing is undoubtedly true and that is why I called his form of evil banal as opposed to venal. His ‘we had to destroy the village to save it’ mentality is unworthy of a serious and humane foreign policy.
It’s like the Eastern European borders that were moved at the end of World War II. Millions of people were forced to leave where they had centuries of roots to go to where others were also being forced to leave, according to their supposed ethnicity. With Stalin running things, nobody said boo [unintended pun] or at least it never made the newspapers.
And people are still furious about this ethnic cleansing.
If there was ever a seminal issue in this election which has to differentiate the candidates, the Iraq War is it. To have someone on the Democratic ticket that has provided any political cover or tangential support to the administration’s warmongering in Iraq absolutely cannot be considered. Obama’s “change” message becomes irreparably tainted if he has a VP candidate who carries with them the unwanted baggage of supporting any aspect of this horrible decision.
In this election the Iraq War must be the Republican’s cross to bear and they should be made to bear it alone. Anything else just weakens the Dem ticket.
I agree it is the seminal issue. But while politicians that were right on Iraq should be given greater respect on foreign policy issues I don’t think we need a litmus test on the initial vote. That’s half the Democratic party and a large majority of Americans.
The litmus test we should have is whether people have admitted their mistakes since the initial vote. And I think Biden has admitted his error, no?
After all, many Americans have changed their minds about Iraq as well. A lot of Americans will respect a guy that is open-minded and willing to admit error. The American people have admitted their mistake in trusting Bush and are now ready to reverse course.
Okay, let’s get something totally clear here.
The Senate was always intended to be a body of our social betters and overlords. It ain’t the people’s house. And it was only in the Senate where a majority of Democrats voted for the war. Twenty-one Dems, plus independent Jim Jeffords and Republicans Lincoln Chafee voted against it, while 29 voted for it.
Among the Democrats that voted for it?
Joe Lieberman (now an independent)
Zell Miller (campaigned for Bush, retired)
Fritz Hollins (retired, seat now GOP)
John Breaux (retired, seat now GOP)
Jean Carnahan (defeated)
Max Cleland (defeated)
Hillary Clinton (lost nomination)
Tom Daschle (defeated)
Bob Torrecelli (scandal induced retirement).
In the House, Dems voted against the war by a 126-81 clip.
And you’d be amazed at how many of those 81 are no longer in office or are now entering retirement.
The majority of Dems opposed this war.
Most of the Dem presidential candidates were war supporters because the conventional wisdom amongst Dems was that serious presidential candidates have to be “tough” and vote for wars. Kind of funny to all of a sudden bring up this litmus test now. I’m all for the litmus test in theory, but it is not at all consistent with the Democratic party this last 8 years. It strikes me as a bit of revisionist history to argue that the Dems were a powerful anti-war force. I think you run the risk of overselling your case (though the House vote is a nice reminder that Dems did oppose it). If you have any book recommendations showing that the Democrats actually fought more vigorously against the war I would love to see them. Because I remember the history differently.
Indeed, out of the Dem candidates running only Kucinich voted against the war and you weren’t so hot on his candidacy. So it’s interesting you bring up the litmus test now because I never knew that your choice was between Obama and Kucinich.
If you look at the fate of the Democrats that voted for the war (including in the recent primary) you would see the value in the litmus test.
I’d like Obama to pick a VP that will promise to be the Efraim Zuroff of the United States. He can have my vote if that VP hunts down every last goddamned genocidal sociopath in the current administration and renders them to The Hague for war crime trials. Such dedication to justice would be more than Obama displays, as evidenced by his weaselly refusal to sign Kucinich’s impeachment articles or call for Bush and Cheney’s arrest. Yeah, yeah, wouldn’t be prudent in the midst of running for Prez. Being prudent is getting a lot of people killed and allowing a lot of criminals to roam free. Screw prudence, it’s time to show some courage and leadership. Judge Jackson didn’t worry about his goddamned poll numbers, he had a job to do. So does Obama.
Sounds like fun
Biden’s mouth works well on the periphery of issues but he lacks the instinctive chess board type of wisdom that is looking moves ahead to the checkmate.
I’m more and more convinced that Wes Clark needs to move to the top tier. I do wish he had a more forceful personality but I think that may be a weakness in my perspective, not his.
BTW, did you see this
Looks like the Brits may inadvertently be shedding more light on the reality that is AQ & Iraq
heh, l would posit that a certain ” senior male civil servant” is about to get a serious grilling.
perhaps l’ve read too much le Carre, but it sounds a lot like a busted “drop”…
nc on wes clark other than to say no thanks.
ha! I had just been thinking about le Carre!
Has everyone forgotten that Biden got abroad with the Gelb plan to divide Iraq?
Evil prick shouldn’t get one look.
Hello–I felt the need to emerge from lurking when I saw this post and its responses. I really have 2 separate comments, here:
(1) Yes, I absolutely do think one’s initial vote on the Iraq invasion is an excellent litmus test–or at least part of an excellent litmus test.
I absolutely despise the set of (sadly, mostly democratic) politicians who voted for the war, and now are pushing to get out ASAP. Sorry–you break it, you buy it. Most of us learned that rule when we were kids. Anyone who spent more than 30 seconds thinking about the consequences of invading Iraq ought to have come to the conclusion that it would be a huge clusterf*ck for a long, long time. So, if a senator voted to invade, I expect said senator to be willing to stay in Iraq for the long haul as the country gets rebuilt. Anything less is the height of irresponsibility, and that’s what I don’t want to see in a VP candidate. This brings me to my second comment.
(2) Whatever we’ve been doing in Iraq these last few years, it doesn’t seem to be working. Yes, of course, we shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but it’s too late to, say, quietly put Saddam back into power and back away slowly. We’ve made a huge mess of things, and there’s really no good solution to the problem.
Biden’s proposal has its problems, certainly, but it’s absolutely the most viable plan I’ve heard anyone come up with. Unlike “cut and run” and “stay the course”, this proposal takes a long-term view of the situation there.
The fact of the matter is, back when the borders of countries in the middle east were drawn up after WWI, they were designed specifically so as to encourage ethnic tensions. Thus, the countries would suffer from internal conflicts and as a result, they’d just roll over and let, say, Britain and France exploit their oil. So, in that sense, the boundaries to countries are not “natural”. Yeah, that happened a long time ago, and yeah, it’d be better if everyone would just get along, but the fact is, they don’t, and we can’t use military force to make everyone stop hating each other.
So, how can we get people to stop hating each other? I can think of two possible methods, but probably both are needed for any realistic scenario. The first is an educated (and therefore, we might hope, enlightened) populace. This takes a long time to create. (“Maybe a hundred more years!”) The second is economic incentives for them to work together such that there is a shared interest in, well, something, but the ethnic groups aren’t competing with each other per se.
…And, that’s what Biden is proposing. Not (as far as I know) forced relocation. A voluntary system with economic incentives which might eventually calm the ethnic tensions in Iraq to the point where we might be able to actually get out without a civil war immediately starting.
To those who dislike Biden’s proposal: do you have a better idea to minimize bloodshed?
Biden is the wrong guy for a lot of reasons. His vote on the war is only part of it.
That said, too many (such as Hillary and Biden) voted for the war because of their presidential aspirations. Too many voted against it just to oppose the other party and W
Too few really thought it through IMO.
The real litmus test IMO is it needs to represent the change in thinking that kept us in a mess for maybe 20 years or more. Iraq is the metaphor and symbol for that, but the primaries to me have said this is about a whole lot more than just Iraq.
Biden is wrong because he’s been running (and losing) for president for 25 years. He needs to either retire to the beach or stay in the Senate where he’s done an honorable but uninspired job for years.
Someone new has to help drive the bus.
I still think Kathleen Sebelius is a good choice.
She’s shown how you can be simultaneously progressive while working with Republicans (her Lt. Gov. is a former Republican) and how you can win statewide elections in deep Red states. She’s a popular Governor in a time of economic hardship. As a Governor she has executive experience. Her father was once the Governor of Ohio, so she has some pedigree and a life of experience in and around government. And she seems to me to perfectly complement Obama’s core messages of change, post-partisanship, and a 50-state strategy.
Plus, as a qualified woman she is well placed in this change election to break that glass ceiling. And, if Obama wins the white women vote, he locks up the presidency.