July 14, 2008

Joe Biden, Conference Call Performance Artist

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biden.jpg The Obama campaign just held a conference call on Iraq as part of its current effort to reassure leery Democrats that Obama is not going soft on his commitment to withdrawal. The call built on an op-ed that Obama published in the New York Times this morning and featured Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Bill Clinton and a senior Obama adviser on foreign policy. Both surrogates have a very serious chance at top appointments in an Obama Administration, including Secretary of State.

The content of the call, like most of these calls, was completely predictable. John McCain is wrong on Iraq, has been wrong on Iraq, and will continue to be wrong on Iraq. Barack Obama is right on Iraq, has been right on Iraq, and will continue to be right on Iraq. Any suggestion that Barack Obama is changing his position on Iraq is wrong.

But you know what isn’t wrong? Joe Biden’s performances as a campaign surrogate. The man is famously gabby and pugilistic, and he proved it today. Here are his thoughts on John McCain.

“I’ve known John for 32 years and frankly I don’t understand anything about John’s [Iraq] policy… I don’t understand the strategy of John’s policy.” John McCain says terrorism is the greatest threat to America but wants to keep us bogged down in Iraq. Joe Biden could get in a helicopter with John McCain and show him exactly where the terrorists live. Which would be in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. (He actually said this.)

“John McCain has no notion [of] what’s going on.”

“I don’t understand where John and [top McCain surrogate] Lindsey [Graham] are coming from here.”

“They don’t get it.”

“He doesn’t get it.”

“They don’t understand the dynamics at play.”

McCain’s comparison of Iraq to Korea and World War II is faulty because the circumstances of those conflicts are not analogous to the current one’s. “We need a fact-based foreign policy… the mere fact that [McCain] makes the comparison is bizarre. I find it bizarre.”

“The most inept comparison I can think of.”

“We have no strategic doctrine in this Administration and John does not have one either.”

“I love John. He’s been my friend for 33 years.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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