I don’t know what percentage of people agree with me, but I’ve always found Joe Biden’s gaffes to be endearing. Still, the main thing I like about Biden is his loyalty. There’s no way that Obama would fail to reward that puppy-dog loyalty and kick Joe off the ticket.
In any case, just because the right throws a hissy-fit doesn’t mean that someone has committed a gaffe.
Agreed. Biden is deeply knowledgeable about key issues. Darned honest. He is also a hoot to listen to. What’s not to like?
His positions on video game censorship, net neutrality, and he’s a drug warrior.
But on the flip-side, as Booman stated, he’s very loyal. He’ll adopt w/e position the president takes.
Part of the job description of a good Vice President. Even Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson observed this requirement. And those guys were not congenitally the sort that let their light hide under a bushel.
So? None of us agrees with anyone all of the time. Hey, I even disagree with myself sometimes.
Kidding aside, I think Biden, who has a habit of speaking candidly, has been just the kind of adviser and counterbalance that Obama needed in his inner circle. He has intimate knowledge of the workings of the Senate and a lot of expertise in foreign policy. Furthermore, as most of the comments here note, he is not a phony or slick. He is down to earth, personable and funny.
The chains comment wasn’t a gaffe, any more than Obama’s misplaced pronoun was a gaffe. I’ve watched the video clips of both. They are only gaffes because the Republicans have said they were. And the media picks up what they say and runs with it, unexamined.
Also agree. His gaffes, generally, come from him being honest and speaking his mind. I think a lot of people identify with that and appreciate it. And he really is smarter than all get out.
I love the Bides. He’s like a friendly, crazy old uncle who is comfortable speaking from the heart even if it offends/embarrasses outsiders.
I don’t see any problem with the “chains” comment, and if Romney wants to whine about it, let him. He whines about 99% of everything said about him or his positions, anyway.
Biden does even more than just ‘say it like it is’ and bring gaffes’ smiles to us. He argues with his friend and partner Obama and is no one’s puppy dog. Biden’s challenges on how to resolve the big issues I suspect lead the list of what Obama values in Biden.
Besides, his gaffes are born of sincerety, never mean spirited.
Good point. He’s also been effective. Biden was one of the voices within the administration arguing for a limited mission in and faster withdrawal from Afghanistan. Which is the policy Pres. Obama is now following.
Biden was one of the voices within the administration arguing for a “jobs and infrastructure” economic policy rather than a “banks and finance” economic policy. The American Jobs Act is straight out of the policies Biden has consistently argued for.
Notice also that, as many folks have said here about his loyalty, he’s always backed Obama up even when the president hasn’t agreed with him.
Likely after the experience with Stanley McChrystal and David Petraues convinced him (Obama) that the military would not deal straight with a President about what they could actually do–but always wanted more resources. McChrystal got cashiered, and Petraeus got sidelined where he couldn’t grandstand. But only after Petreaus was sent to do the job that McChrystal couldn’t get done.
Yep. I think that’s one of the great “fool me once, shame on you; try to fool me twice…we won’t get fooled again” moments of Obama’s presidency.
The Pentagon fixed the policy review of the Afghanistan War so that Obama’s options were: 1) more war, 2) longer war, 3) more and longer war.
Obama gave them more war but sped up their timeline and got them on the record, publicly, as saying that the surge would end after 18 months. And so it did. (As did their ability to undermine him.)
Yeah, the dump-Joe nonsense looks to me like a briar patch gambit. Only the Republicans suck at subtlety, so it’s like they’re saying “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch! Because if you do, I’ll be able to escape, which is why I’m so clever for tricking you like this.”
Has anyone on the left-of-center called for Biden’s replacement? I’m unaware.
Biden is a non-dick, just like Obama. They obviously like working with each other. Biden also has channels to the Senate that have been useful. No, they wouldn’t have given us single payer, but as a conduit for information.
The level of hissy fit is directly proportional to the effectiveness of the statement. Call it “The Rovian Axiom”.
nice. Biden’s comment definitely not a gaffe. republican sputtering in response to his use of republican metaphor
i’ve always found Joe Biden, like nearly all of his predecessors as VP, to be insignificant.
He’d have to do something that seriously embarassed the President to deserve being replaced and none of the shit reported as “gaffes” by the villagers comes close. To even think about replacing him is to create drama where there was none before.
I love him. He’s the most real person in DC.
That sums up how I feel about him. I love Uncle Joe. His “gaffes” show a decent human being inside the politician.
If the right is throwing a hissy-fit, it means the sun came up today. It’s what they do. Birds gotta fly, dogs gotta shit themselves on car roofs, Republican gotta butthurt.
Seems that 40% or so of the country are living in an alternate right-wing reality. Look at the comment thread on this article — these people will never be satisfied with anything Obama does.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/08/17/obamas_betrayal_115134-comments.html
They seem to have constructed their own history of the obama administration. They focus solely on his flaws, real and imagined, and give him zero credit for any successes. Where I see a president who has bent over backwards to try to find middle ground with the other side, they see a socialist usurper, an evil, incompetent dishonest disgrace to the office. And they blame the dems for the breakdown of ‘civility’. Even if Obama crushes Romney in november, these people are not going away, and they will want their congressional reps to do anything to stop Obama from succeeding. How is Obama going to get anything done in the face of such concerted opposition? There doesn’t seem to be any way to reach these people.
Mitt Romney is such an oaf.
They could have had a little fun with that comment, spoken in that fake-black voice that white politicians sometimes slip into when they’re doing a back-and-forth routine with a black audience, to make Biden look like a panderer.
It called for a light touch; a little light mockery, some humor, a mild suggestion, and they could have ginned up a mildly-embarrassing story to talk about for a day or two.
But oh no, Mitt Romney comes out with guns a-blazing, saying “Barack Obama should take his campaign of hate and division back to Chicago! Grr, motherfuckers! Racist, like Hitler!” And now they’re going to keep doing that for a week, make themselves look like assholes, until it dawns on them that nobody is paying attention.
Watching a conservative try to score a point on a racial issue is like watching a chimpanzee that’s gotten hold a field researcher’s cell phone. He’s trying to make the magic voices come out by imitating her gestures, but really, he has no idea what he’s doing or what the device even is.
Watching a conservative try to score a point on a racial issue is like watching a chimpanzee that’s gotten hold a field researcher’s cell phone. He’s trying to make the magic voices come out by imitating her gestures, but really, he has no idea what he’s doing or what the device even is.
Joe, now that there’s a good one. ROFLMFAO!!!
Joe Biden is
RIDE-OR-DIE, baby!!
RIDE-OR-DIE!!!
as shakespeare wrote…borrowing from plato, ims…an empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
panic over the outcome of their actions come november appears be setting in early in the reichwing talievangisphere.
works for me.
C’mon, folks.
Ol’ lovable Unca Joe.
Riiiiight…
Lissen up.
If the numbers got too tight w/Biden on the ticket and other numbers suggested that adding Hillary Clinton to the ticket would produce a sure win, then…provided both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Biden got concessions commensurate with their relative amounts of PermaGov pull…the switch would happen in a heartbeat.
Bet on it.
Lying is what this is all about, this politics game.
For example…there were big headlines today about “White House Eyeing Fuel Reserve Release.” I skimmed a few major media articles. 4/5ths of each story was about “rising gas prices” and “Iran/Syria/Middle East” problem(s). Then…hush, hush, after the no-brainer public mostly gives up trying to read alla them big words…only then is it hinted that lower gas prices might help O’Bomber win a close election.
Please.
Let us get real here.
Please!!!
This is basically a leftiness-oriented politics blog, right?
OK.
Great.
Talk real politics.
Smoke and mirrors, deals left, right and center to get things done. Enough of this holier than thou shit. Obama wins because he…and his controllers/helpers/call them what you will…are simply better horse traders than is their opposition, not because they are in some objective sense morally superior. End of story.
End of story.
Over and out.
Of course…that would mean that the only way left for you yutzes to get off would be somtehing like fantasy football. But at least in football no one gets murdered. Much. If y’know what I mean.
Or even if you don’t.
Over and out.
And…WTFU.
Please.
AG
Enough of this holier than thou shit indeed.
The idea that anything you just wrote isn’t universally understood by everyone who read, skimmed, or skipped your comment is a self-aggrandizing delusion.
Politicians engage in politics? Wow, no shit Sherlock. Absolutely nobody except you has ever noticed that, Arthur.
What would we do without you to set up straight?
I dunno, Joe.
What would y’all do?
A quick perusal of the front page of this increasingly leftiness-zombified blog suggests that you would clomp-clomp-clomp on down the leftiness-approved so-called “high road” right to the edge of the PermaGov cliff.
Leftiness lemmings, so busy deriding the evil right-wingers that they do not see the oncoming cliffs for the right-wing trees.
Lemocrats, in a word.
WTFU.
You are so busy re-(
s)electing O’Bomber that you don’t see the truth of the matter. He is no better than R. Money.Just slicker.
Much slicker.
Bet on it.
AG
No, Arthur, it is the claim that Obama is “no better than” Romney that is a failure to see the truth of the matter.
I see this shortcoming frequently from people who adopt a “pox on both houses” superior pose. It’s just another narrative about partisan differences that people can adhere to, but it’s even more impervious to facts and reason than the more familiar kinds of partisanship.
At least a Democratic partisan or a Republican partisan is aware, if only at the level of theory, of the possibility that their understanding can be led astray by an eagerness to believe something that confirms their chosen narrative about the parties.
But someone like you so wedded to the “not a dime’s worth of difference” line of bullshit that worked out so poorly for the Naderites, you think that having a story confirm your established narrative about partisan politics is a reliable way of making sure you aren’t giving in to bias.
And that makes you a very easy mark.
It appears that you prefer to be slicked rather than slacked. Obamaed rather than Romneyed. There is a third way. Honesty. You believe that such a thing is if not impossible, at the very least impractical in this country at this time.
Could be…I draw the line myself. I will not be lied to.
Hustle on, Joe. Hustle on. The real shit endures. The rest? It goes the way of the wind. I’m nobody’s mark. Bet on it.
You?
You’re a Dem mark.
So it goes, and wake the fuck up.
I’m rootin’ for ya.
As a matter of fact…I’m rooting for everybody.
So that goes as well.
AG
There is a third way. Honesty.
Gosh, I never knew what was in those newsletters, honest! I never even read them!
Stop lecturing about honesty, Arthur. You take what you want to hear, and call it honest because it’s what you want to hear.
You are of course correct, Joe. Every pol lies and every pol must hustle. This is a universal fact of life no matter whether we speak of what we laughingly call a democracy or of all the various other possible forms of government. Kings and queens lie and hustle, dictators lie and hustle, tribal chiefs and religious figures lie and hustle. They all lie and hustle.
I guess it all depends on which lies and which hustle. A small-time Texas hustle while trying to round up enough votes to be able to continue to work for large-scale changes…revolutionary changes…in the way that this economic imperialist country (
mal)functions is one thing, especially if every action a man has taken and every direct statement he has ever made over 40 years in politics contradicts all of the so-called “policies” hinted at in those newsletters you knee-jerk leftinesses so delight in churning up every time that you are asked to actually think about the policies of this country and its future if those policies are not radically altered. (The real policies, not the garbage dished out by the media in overwhelming amounts. Economic imperialist murder abroad and an enormously unjust political/economical system at home just for starters.)On the other hand, becoming president of this country on a “Change” platform and then not changing a goddamned thing other than tactics in terms of either our viciously militaristic foreign policy or our equally vicious economic elites is another thing altogether, as would be winning an election on any other PermaGov-friendly set of lies such as the Ratpublican model. Trickle down or piss into the wind are not the only two options open to us, Joe; they are just the only two that are media-approved.
Wake the fuck up before it’s too fucking late.
Sincerely…
Paul Revere II
That’s “economic,” not “economical.” It’s almost comical, our economical. Cain’t he’p laughin’ fer the cryin’, Joey boy. I jes’ cain’t he’p mahse’f!!!
Paul R. II
P.S. How’s your “economicals” lookin’ these days. brudda? Doin’ OK? If so, yer either foolin’ yourself or you’re part of the problem. Bet on it. You either buy into the hustle or you are bought out.
Way out.
Bet on that as well.
If you’re talking about that “chains” thing, it WASN’T a gaffe, it was a rather elegant riposte. Romney said that he was going to unchain Wall Street, meaning that president Obama was the one that had put Wall Street in chains. And Biden replied directly to that. So, if Romney really believes that Biden was doing I don’t know what terribel thing to the memory of slavery, that means that Romney himself believes that Wall Street was put into chattel slavery by the first, though evil, black president, and he, Romney, would (heroically, we must understand) liberate that poor slave Wall Street that the bad black president had put into chains. If the press, including the bloggers, would just follow the logic of the entire thing they’d see yet again that the asshat here is not Biden but Romney.
The biased librul media following the logic to where a Democrat is going? Surely you jest.
I’ve liked Joe Biden from the second I heard him speak. All this BS about him getting kicked off the ticket in favor of Hillary Clinton is BS. Hillary wouldn’t do it and Biden has been doing a great job as VP.
Besides, I want to see Biden the bulldog rip Ryan to bits in the debates. He went easy on Palin as he is a gentleman, but Ryan is a whole different story.
This is just GOP BS – hoping for a rift between Obama and Joe. Want Biden to stay; wouldn’t appreciate any attempt to remove him.
I’ve never understood all the previous speculation that Biden would be dropped in favor of Clinton. He’s a perfect complement to Obama, and really for the most part he’s stayed completely out of the spotlight. But as a campaigner and speaker, he’s excellent in his own way, a way very different from the President. I can’t think of a better person for the job.
And beyond that, capitulating to this latest right-wing hissy fit would be monumentally dumb. This little episode may play well within the vast GOP bubble, but to the rest of the world, they look absolutely ridiculous.
Wtg, Joe.
If you look at who did the speculating, it becomes easier to understand.
Most of it came from right-wingers, who have fallen in love with their own contempt for the man. They also love the idea of “Democrats in disarray,” and dropping the VP would help.
Also engaged in the speculation were some old-school PUMA-types, who think that passing over Hillary for VP was a double somersault slap in the face with a twist.
Hm. PUMAs. You know, it’s amazing to look back and see just how much water has flowed under the bridge in just 3 years.
Yeah, the Biden replacement suggestion always come from the Clinton supporters, at least on the Democratic side. It’s just beyond ludicrous to see the GOP howling for Biden’s replacement now. It’s even worse than floating rumors about impeaching Obama over Fast-and-Furious garbage.