Read the full transcript of VP pick Joe Biden's appearance on Meet The Press:
MR. BROKAW: ...at the Republican National Convention. And when she used that line, being a mayor is like being a community organizer except you have actual responsibilities, you said, "Pretty good line."
SEN. BIDEN: Yeah, it was a great line.
MR. BROKAW: She had a number of good lines.
SEN. BIDEN: She had a number of good ones. Look, she's a smart, tough politician, and so I, I think she's going to be very formidable. But you know, eventually she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions about her record.
[...]MR. BROKAW: ...in conventional terms. Make it tougher debating her than it would, say, Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania?
SEN. BIDEN: Well, in, in the sense I know Mitt Romney and know his positions, and I know Tom Ridge and I really respect them. And--but you know, I, I've debated an awful lot of tough, smart women. A woman who's a judge here in our superior court was one of my toughest opponents ever for the Senate. And there's a lot of very tough, smart women in the United States Senate I debate every day. So in that sense it's not new. But what is new is I have no idea what her policies are. I assume they're the same as John's. I just don't know.
[...]MR. BROKAW: Or John McCain said, but the conditions are in place, and Anbar province, where you have been, where there had been so much difficulty, the Iraqis now have taken over that province. We have brigades that have Sunnis and Shia serving side by side...
SEN. BIDEN: Not many.
MR. BROKAW: ...fighting the terrorists. But it's a process, and it's beginning, and the surge made that possible, did it not?
SEN. BIDEN: No. The surge helped make that--what made is possible in Anbar province is they did what I'd suggested two and a half years ago: gave local control. They turned over and they said to the Sunnis in Anbar province, "We promise you, don't worry, you're not going to have any Shia in here. There's going to be no national forces in here. We're going to train your forces to help you fight al-Qaeda." And that you--what you had was the awakening. The awakening was not an awakening by us, it was an awakening of the Sunnis in Anbar province willing to fight.
MR. BROKAW: Cooperating with the Shia.
SEN. BIDEN: Willing to fight. Cooperating with--no, they weren't cooperating with Shiite. They didn't cooperate with the Shiites.
MR. BROKAW: Once the awakening got under way.
SEN. BIDEN: No, no, no. No, they didn't cooperate with the Shiites. It's still--it's a big problem, Tom. You got--we're paying 300 bucks a month to each of those guys. Now the problem has been and the, and the promise was made by Maliki that they would be integrated into the overall military. That's a process that is beginning in fits and starts now, but it's far from over. Far from--look, the bottom line here is that it's--let's--the surge is over. Here's the real point. Whether or not the surge worked is almost irrelevant now. We're in a new deal. What is the administration doing? They're doing what Barack Obama has suggested over 14 months ago, turn responsibility over and draw down our troops. We're about to get a deal from the president of the United States and Maliki, the head of the Iraqi government, that's going to land on my desk as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee saying we're going to set a timeline to draw down our forces. The only guy in America out of step is John McCain. John McCain's saying no timeline. They've signed on to Barack Obama's proposal.
1 comment:
Thanks Rebeller, I was lookig for a link to then transscript and found your post. Joe Biden is a smart guy. I was reminded of this in the beginning when Brokaw was talking to him about Palin. In addition to the quote you posted, which is exactly how the dems should be playing the Palin nomination, with respect and not rumors, speculation and innuendo that are insulting to voters generally and women in particular, Biden didn't attack her lack of experience on the national stage directly, instead he made the same point by point repeating at every opportunity, as he did when discussing his upcoming debate with Palin, that he doesn't know where she stands on any number of big picture, perennially important issues. This highlighted Palin's newcomer status at this late date in a powerful way, without making him look like an old bully, especially in combination with the respect he paid her right at the start.
Things went downhill for Biden once Brokaw got into Iraq, Obama's signature issue, his raison d'etre as the democratic candidate. There is simply no getting around the fact that he and Obama opposed the surge. In an appearance before the senate months after the surge began, Biden even told Gen. Patraeus that the surge was "unconscionable,” for being "at best a stop gap," and for putting "more American lives at risk with no prospect for success." So of course he was forced to go into a song and dance, repeatedly claiming that all the good things happening today in Iraq are the result of the Bush administration and the Iraqis finally choosing to follow all the other advice and policies he and Obama have been giving and advocating all along.
It was bold of him, that's for sure, ridiculous, but bold. It's ridiculous because it ignores the overriding fact that at best Iraq would not be where it is today, and at worst it would be in a full blown civil war, if we had followed Obama and Biden's wishes, as expressed to Gen. Patraeus by Biden in that same senate appearance one year ago:
"the time is now to start drawing down U.S. forces, not just to pre-surge levels, but well below them, and to limit the mission of those that remain... I have a plan that offers the possibility, not the guarantee, of stability in Iraq as we leave. It’s based on the reality that Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds are not ready to entrust their fates to each other...I would initiate a diplomatic surge... bringing in the U.N., major countries and Iraq’s neighbors to help implement and oversee the political settlement I’m proposing....We should stop the surge and start bringing troops home. We should end a political strategy in Iraq that cannot succeed..."
In other words, admit defeat, high tail it out of there, and turn the mess over to the UN and Iraq's neighbors, presumably Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, and hope these competing interests can implement Biden’s vague and dreamy version of a "political settlement,” to be reached locally by still morel competing interests in Iraq. Sounds like a blueprint for civil war to me, with the added bonus of increasing Iran’s stature in the region and giving a boost to its nuclear ambitions, while simultaneously increasing the threat to global security posed by any serious, short or long term disruption in the flow of Middle Eastern oil to the rest of the world.
History has taught us what can happen when the supply of oil is cut off to technologically emerging countries that don’t have any of their own (think Japan, WW II), and there are some big ones out there right now. As badly as we might want to see an end to the situation in Iraq, cutting and running has never been much of an option, the stakes are far too high.
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