Month: August 2008

The beauty of time-lapsed mould:

Kaplan reports on Burma:

…toward Burma specifically, U.S. policy seems guided more by strategic myopia. The Bush administration, like its predecessors, has loudly embraced the cause of Burmese democracy but has done too little to advance it, either by driving diplomatic initiatives in the region or by supporting any of the ethnic insurgencies. Indeed, Special Operations Command is too preoccupied with the western half of the Indian Ocean, the Arab/Persian half, to pay much attention to Burma, which lacks the energizing specter of an Islamic terror threat. Meanwhile, the administration’s reliance on sanctions and its unwillingness to engage with the ruling junta has left the field open to China, India, and other countries swayed more by commercial than moral concerns.

McCain gets out of the gate with an ad using Biden’s words against Obama. They had to see this coming:

Leaving aside all the necessary gaming of how this affects the election, what does the selection of Biden tell us about Obama’s potential decision-making as president? This is the second big decision of the national campaign (the first was opting out of public financing). I’d say it suggests a serious, adult attitude toward the enormous burden that the next presidency will be, especially in foreign policy.

We’ve learned how disastrous a vice-president can be, in the current administration. No vice-president in American history has done as much damage to national security, constitutional integrity and the moral standing of the United States as Dick Cheney. Biden has aspects of the Cheney pick – he’s older, more seasoned and more adept at foreign policy than Obama. But no one imagines that Obama would delegate – and all but abdicate – critical decisions to Biden the way Bush has to Cheney.

Nonetheless, it seems obvious that Biden speaks his mind frankly, and would have real heft and independence in the office. He knows enough that foreign leaders call him in international crises. That reassures me, as we face some grim days in the coming years in the war on terror.

This strikes me, in other words, as a pick for a candidate who is already very serious about governing – and making calls that forgo a campaign buzz for the sake of the country if he wins. Putting country first, you might say.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

3.10 pm. So far, Obama’s praise of Biden’s character hits some key points: character, tragedy, family. The story of Biden’s family’s car crash and his wife’s and daughter’s deaths is a gripping one. Nicely done.

3.16 pm. A "statesman" a man who can represent strength without bluster. An emphasis on his toughness – against Milosevic. The "scrappy kid from Scranton" … "who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington." 3.20 pm. "We will restore that fair shot at your dreams." I’ll note two things: the fundamental theme is changing the direction of the past eight years. The stronger message is working class optimism and struggle. Biden is doing more than cement foreign policy experience; he is recasting the ticket as a regular guy, working-class, get up off your feet Democratic combo. 3.28 pm. Biden looks pumped, and Teddy Kennedy-like. The message is economic distress and the need to restore the American dream. Biden’s speech sounds like the latter part of the Clinton primary campaign. Clintonism without the Clintons: that’s what Biden is now offering. 3.30 pm. "The reckoning is now … These times demand total change in Washington’s worldview."

3.35 pm. The attack on McCain is prefaced by a grace-note about McCain’s courage and service. And then it’s simply Bush-McCain, Bush-McCain, Bush-McCain. Biden brandishes McCain’s strongest words of support and backing for George W. Bush; that’s what his role will be. Pinning McCain to Bush and Cheney. They need to do this. Biden is a pretty good vehicle for it.

3.40 pm. "This man is a clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job done." Biden represents a retooling of the Obama campaign toward more concrete appeals on more concrete economic issues. That seems to me to be the message of today.

3.45 pm. I get it: Biden is the older, working class, Catholic guy who tells the nervous white ethnics that this guy is for real. This is about Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan. Less yuppie hope; more working class grit. No wonder they chose Springsteen to kick it off.

(Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.)

Ron Fournier’s dramatic use of opinion in the first paragraph of the Biden story going out on all the wires is an aggressive Republican spin. Fournier has already weakened the AP’s rep for pretty straight-up reportage. It just got a lot weaker. Last spring, by the way, Fournier was lambasting Obama for arrogance. Now, apparently, it’s a lack of confidence. Whatever works, I guess. But please, get a blog.

A lot of emails in my in-tray today read a little like this one:

"Mom’s Boyfriend" Love it! Very apt.

 

I went to bed with a wary soul, visions of OBAMA/KAINE bumper stickers dancing in my head. Thank God, it’s Biden. Love the guy, love the pairing. Can’t wait to see them together. I’m thinking it’s like Astaire and Kelly, two equal but different talents.  Elegant cool versus muscular earthy.

 

Now Lord, please give us Romney.

And another:

I think there really is something to this idea that older women voters love Biden.  My 65 yr. old mother adores him because "he’s real and has been through a lot of stuff" (referring to the death of his wife and daughter.)

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a great pick as well, but my mother is over the moon.

I’m not sure how this combo will play. All I would hazard is that Biden will give a hell of a speech at the Convention. The Democrats need a little scrappiness – especially against a McCain campaign that is determined to get into Obama’s face, even today. The ticket is immediately less precious. And more Pennsylvanian.

A bunch of reaction from around the web. Ambinder:

Obama-Biden will be a formidable ticket, and a risky ticket, and not a comfort zone choice for Obama. "It’s a big ball pick, not a small ball pick," an adviser said…

I gather that what impressed Obama about Biden is that Biden gets things done. He’s a man of action. He’s not a bullshitter.  I also get the sense that Biden, 65, is pretty well aware that, at age 73 in eight years, he’s not going to be a viable presidential choice, and thus was able to convince Obama that because the vice presidency would be his terminal position, the famous Biden ego will take a subordinate role.

Patrick Ruffini:

When Bill Clinton chose Al Gore, this was rightly seen as a template for modern VP selections. The traditional notion of "balancing" the ticket with someone of a different state or background gave way to the idea of using the VP as device to reinforce the message of the guy at the top. So, in the last change election, you had two young Southern party modernizers on the ticket. You couldn’t argue their message was not about change.

Instead of reinforcing Obama’s message, Biden muddles it. Biden is the ultimate Washington insider, having been in the Senate for 36 years.

Jay Nordlinger:

I believe that Barack Obama will not wear well.

Indeed, I think his act has been wearing thin for weeks. And I think that his vice-presidential nominee will wear even worse. I’m not sure why he went with Biden – maybe he likes him, personally, which is not the worst thing in the world. It’s helpful if a president likes his vice president (or at least doesn’t dislike him). But I don’t see what Biden gains him. Biden is a slightly risible figure, what with his hair plugs (or whatever) and his many, many examples of public obnoxiousness. All politicians have sizable egos, but this may be the most self-loving ticket ever.

Fallows on Biden’s debate performances and his disappointing Senate questions:

Politicians have to be egomaniacal to be in the business. Anyone who enters the US Senate with a limited appreciation of self soon has it expanded. But while Biden’s ineffective hearing "questions" often sounded as if they came from "normal" Senatorial egotism — I’m on stage now, listen to me — his debate comments and his partisan anti-Bush arguments reflected a more attractive egotism of knowledge and policy. Let’s call it simple confidence, of the sort that Bill Clinton in his prime displayed when dismissing Republican economic arguments. The subliminal message in this pose is: I know what I’m talking about here, I’ve dealt with this for years, and I have no time for the other side’s ignorance.

David Corn:

Biden comes with decades of baggage. There are thousands of Senate floor votes for GOP oppo researchers to sift through. He’s had more than one plagiarism scandal. Hailing from a solidly Democratic state, he brings no Electoral College votes with him. But he has the talent to be both Obama’s attack dog and his top foreign policy adviser. And though vice presidential nominees tend to have no true impact on the final results, Biden has the potential to be a fierce campaigner for and with Obama–that is, if he can be the better Biden for the next ten weeks.

James Poulos:

There are three main things you want out of a Veep.

(1) The ability to appear in public 24 hours a day, uttering incessant and high-profile attacks on the opposition, without overshadowing the Presidential candidate.

(2) The ability to shape the office of the Vice Presidency, post-Cheney, into something more than useless but less than monstrous.

(3) The ability to square dispositionally with the Presidential candidate without disappearing into his aura or echoing his every instinct.

This is why Cheney was an exceptional (1 and 3) but not perfect (2!) veep, whereas Biden is an extraordinary, almost perfect choice.

Dean Barnett:

I must offer thanks to the Obama campaign – the Biden selection promises to provide grand entertainment. On the right, we’ll get to dust off Joe Biden’s greatest hits, a pleasurable task that will take weeks. Also on the right, we’ll get to watch progressives feign joy over Obama’s elevation of an Iraq war supporter who enjoys a cozy relationship with the credit card companies (not that there’s anything wrong with either one of those things).

Like many people who read Richard Ben Cramer’s seminal “What It Takes,” I’ve long harbored a secret soft spot for Joe Biden. But that soft spot is always threatened by prolonged exposure to the man. Usually a 20 minute segment on Meet the Press provides a mortal threat to my lingering fondness for Biden. Like the head of the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden tends not to wear well, especially in concentrated doses over short periods of time. Speaking purely analytically, Obama has made a poor decision.

Hilzoy:

I think this is a decent choice, especially given the alternatives (Bayh, shudder.) I’ve seen at least one article — regrettably, I can’t remember which — saying that it was a safe choice. I don’t buy this. Obviously, there were riskier choices Obama could have made — he could have picked Courtney Love, for instance. But there are obvious risks to picking Biden: the plagiarism from the 1980s, the fact that he is, as everyone says, "gaffe-prone", and so forth. The truly safe choice, for Obama though not for the country, would have been Bayh. I’m glad Obama didn’t go that way.

Jonathan Cohn:

I imagine Biden’s selection will indeed make it harder to run against Washington per se. And that’s ok with me. I’ve often thought that the Obama campaign had become too focused on changing the culture of politics, rather than improving people’s lives. If picking Biden forces them to do more of the latter, that’s probably a good thing.

Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, Nevada, 8 am.

From TNR, 6/28/04:

Much has been said about the potential consequences of failure in Iraq–how it would provide a new haven for terrorists, deal a blow to reformers and modernizers throughout the region, and encourage radicals in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But perhaps failure’s most pernicious legacy will be a further hardening of the Democratic Party’s Vietnam syndrome–its distrust of government and the use of American power.

That syndrome is one reason why, from day one, many of us in Congress pressed the president to level with the American people about what would be required to prevail in Iraq. But he didn’t. He didn’t tell them that well over 100,000 troops would be needed for well over two years. He didn’t tell them the cost would surpass $200 billion–and far exceed Iraq’s oil revenue. He didn’t tell them that our children and grandchildren would pay the bill because of his refusal to rescind even a small portion of the tax cut he gave to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. He didn’t tell them that, even after paying such a heavy price, success was not assured, because no one had ever succeeded at forcibly democratizing a nation in the Middle East, let alone an entire region.

As a result, today those who recognize that we must persevere in Iraq risk losing public support.

Americans sense that our policy is adrift and that we do not have a plan for success. Worse, they may conclude that this is what happens when we venture abroad. Someday, probably sooner rather than later, there will be another Slobodan Milosevic or another Saddam, and the profound mistakes in Iraq will make it harder to generate domestic and international political support for the use of force. That is a legacy we can ill afford.

Maybe, as some argue, so many mistakes have been made in Iraq that it is impossible to turn the corner. Anti-American attitudes and a nascent warlordism may already be so deeply entrenched that there is little we can do to succeed. It would be foolhardy to deny that possibility. But it would be even more foolhardy, and dangerous, to accept failure as inevitable and move to cut our losses. Despite the naysayers, it is not too late. But only the president can alter our course in Iraq. As he did when Congress first authorized him to use force, the president has the choice of using his power effectively or squandering it to satisfy ideological predilections. Let us hope he has grown wiser in the past year.