Making History

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And yes, this is, A BIG FUCKING DEAL!!!

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RIP

Vice President Joe Biden's mother, Catherine Eugenia 'Jean' Finnegan Biden, has passed.
My condolences to him and his family.

"Who Do You Trust?"

Biden On The Daily Show

I thought VP Joe Biden did a really good job on the Daily Show. Especially on explaining this tempest in a teapot story about the recovery.gov website. Hopefully people understand that this is much ado about nothing now.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Joe Biden Pt. 1
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Joe Biden Pt. 2
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Did Biden REALLY Change His Tone On Israel?

People are still freaking out over Vice President Joe Biden's appearance on "This Week With George Stephanopolous" Now here is the deal, its one thing to be upset because you don't agree with his position that the US can't dictate to Israel what they should and shouldn't do in pursuit of their own national security interests. I get that. But what you can not do is make it seem as if this is something new or a "change in tone" or a "hardening of the stance" from Joe Biden. It just isn't true.

Let's check out what he had to say last year a couple of months before the election.

September 3, 2008


Joe Biden had a 20-minute conference call with members of the Jewish media today.

Among other things, when asked about a possible Israeli attack against Iran, he said: "This is not a question for us to tell the Israelis what they can and cannot do. ... I have faith in the democracy of Israel."

So can we PLEASE kill this meme now?!?!?!

Deuces

NYTimes Framing Fail

The New York Times' Brian Knowlton has a story up which makes it seems as if Vice President Joe Biden said something controversial on "This Week With George Stephanopolous" this morning about the U.S. giving Israel the green light to bomb Iran. This story has now spawned posts on at least two major left leaning blogs concerned that Biden may have been sending the wrong signal today. We know its Joe Biden so most people will just assume he made another gaffe, but did he really?

No he didn't. He repeated basically the same thing President Obama has said over and over and that is that the United States can't dictate to Israel what Israel does with respect to Iran. That is the stance any American president and or Vice President HAS to take publicly. Israel is a soverign nation and we can't go admitting that we can control their actions. That doesn't mean they won't put pressure on Israel behind the scenes to deter them from coming to the conclusion that they "need" to bomb Iran anymore than it means we will allow them to fly over Iraq's airspace to attack Iran. It just means the administration won't give Republicans a target to shoot at by saying anything the GOP can twist into "they don't care about Israel's safety".

For anyone concerned that this was some kind of "gaffe" I would suggest you go and just read the transcript, which unsurprisngly the NYTimes guy didn't link to, and see for yourself in full context if what Biden said was REALLY so earth shattering compared to what Obama has said repeaedly.

Check out the full exchange and see if you come away with the same feeling as you got from reading the NYTimes article

BIDEN: If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table?

BIDEN: The offer's on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

Just as a reminder here is what President Obama has said about the same issue.

With respect to concerns Israel might carry out an air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, the US president said that since Israel is "right there in the range" of Iranian missiles, "their calculation of costs and benefits are going to be more acute."

Obama remarked that he did not think it was his place to "determine for the Israelis what their security needs are."

Can you find any space between the two statements? Because I can't. Biden really is just toeing the company line here. Shame on the New York Times for trying to invent a controversy.

Common Sense

For most of this morning Vice President Joe Biden has been villified for a supposed "gaffe" he committed on the Today Show. Here is the video.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now this is how the story is being framed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden says he's advising his own family to stay off commercial airlines and even subways because of the new swine flu.

Biden said Thursday if one person sneezes on a confined aircraft, "it goes all the way through the aircraft." Going beyond official advice from the federal government, Biden said of his family's personal precautions: "That's me."

Now this is the framing even on liberal and progressive blogs and I for one am calling BULLSHIT. What VP Biden said was unquestionably reasonable in the context of advice he was giving to his family on how to avoid getting infected with swine flu and with the caveat he included that he was advocating not taking public transportation if you have an alternate means to get around. I don't think the WHO has raised the threat level to 5 out of 6 just for shits and giggles and in light of that how can it be wrong to say you are telling your family to avoid public transportation where the likelihood of contracting swine flu is much higher? I know I for one wouldn't be advising any family members of mine to take a flight or get on a subway right now. Its a shame that now every time Joe Biden says something that should be common sense for most folks the media rushes to call it a gaffe. I realize the White House made him walk back the statement but that says more about our chattering classes than it does about Joe Biden.

Ezra Klein has a post up similarly dismissing this "gaffe".

But here's the thing: Biden may be right to induce a bit of panic. The United States Travel Association won't think so. It's their profit stream on the line, after all. But epidemiologists are probably quietly relieved by the Vice President's comments.

Last night, I spent some time with Arin Dutta's "The Effectiveness of Policies to Control a Human Influenza Pandemic: A Literature Review." The overview was prepared for the World Bank. In it, Dutta argues that the key variable in determining the spread of an infection is the "base reproduction rate," defined as the number of secondary infections produced by a primary infection. In other words, if one person has the flu, then on average, the base reproduction rate measures how many people will catch the flu from him. Lowering that rate is the key to pandemic response. And lowering that rate requires things like "forcing or urging people to limit contacts, encouraging hand washing or other personal hygiene, or promoting the use of facemasks." Some of it sounds trivial. But it matters. If the reproduction rate falls beneath 1, "the epidemic usually dies out."

snip

Which is why the absolute best case is that Joe Biden did something that's so effective that he looks really stupid. If people actually reduce social contact and cut down on air travel and stay home in response to a single cough, then it's much likelier that swine flu will quickly die out. If it does, we'll all feel a bit foolish over having taken those precautions and late night comics will make fun of Joe Biden and everyone will move on. If we don't, and R jumps up, then we could be dealing with a full blown pandemic and Biden's warning will come to be seen as, if anything, insufficiently alarmist.

This is much ado about nothing and I am dissappointed that some on the liberal and progressive side are getting sucked into playing up this story.

Another Stunning Admission From Dick Cheney

I guess Dick Cheney actually DOES know a Vice President is not a part of the legislative branch of government after all. On FoxNews, Dick Cheney was asked about VP Elect Joe Biden's claim at the Vice Presidential debate that Cheney has been the "most dangerous Vice President we've probably had in American history". In his answer Cheney tried to derisively correct Biden by saying:

"He also said that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article I of the Constitution," Cheney said in a interview that was conducted on Friday. "Well, they're not. Article I of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch."

First of all, lets be clear. Article I of Constitution does in fact lay out the responsibilities of the Vice President in the Senate. It reads like so.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

But more to the point, setting Cheney's error aside, this is just another example of the hypocrisy of his previous statements on the matter. His premise now is that because Article I deals with the Legislative branch then it therefore does not concern the Vice President gives truth to his own lie that the Vice President is actually a part of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government. Now I am but a lowly blogger, but it will be interesting to see if any of the heavy hitters in the mainstream media point out this hypocrisy. Especially since he has used that particular lie to give himself cover any investigations

My early guess is that nobody will have the courage to call him out. But it certainly would be nice to be proven wrong in this instance.