Biden in 2016. You’re freaking kidding me, right?
Give me 3 points and I’ll take the spread on him being more ignorant than Michele Bachmann, favorite whipping girl of people who hate the GOP but must resort to flogging its worst instead of its best.
The difference being that Rep. Bachmann is about to return to well-earned backbencher obscurity, but Vice President Biden will again be on the Big Ticket in 2012.
This is the guy who lost his debate with Sarah Palin, a dilettante who makes Rep. Bachmann look like Bill Clinton.
The world is a strange place…
Give me 3 points and I’ll take the spread on him being more ignorant than Michele Bachmann.
I will take that bet.
Russell, Biden has a longer record of stupidity and demagoguery, so you’d lose there. We could tit for tat for ages, but Bachmann’s cupboard would run dry first. Plus I have the spread of 3 points.
😉
But it’s not about quibbling on this minor point; the larger point—and how I cleverly set it up—is that Bachmann will be back to backbenching very soon [she was no more than a protest candidate], whereas Biden will be on the ticket.
And yes, by many accounts, he did lose his debate with Sarah Palin. Even if he didn’t, it shouldn’t have been that close, since I freely admit she’s a dilettante. [And I wouldn’t blame anyone for voting against McCain just for the brainlessness of selecting her.]
Well, you’re certainly right that a back and forth of “He sucks worse,” “No, she sucks worse” would hardly make for a compelling comment thread.
I’ll have to take your word about Biden losing the debate. I had a massive tonic-clonic seizure when Sarah Palin started winking at the camera, and had to take huge doses of benzodiazepines just to survive the experience. My recollections are thusly a little hazy, but I came away thinking that he won. But then, I’d vote for a shaved ape before I voted for Sarah Palin, so perhaps I’m also a bit biased.
And of course Biden will be on the ticket in 2012. But this whole post seemed a lamentation about a possible run in 2016. I promise you here, in front of all your readers, that if Biden is on the ticket in 2016 I will buy a round of drinks for you and your whole blues band (venue TBD).
Biden LOSING the debate, that is.
Well, Russell, this was pretty much to take a well-warranted shot at Biden, who gets away with so much idiocy. I do submit your eagerness to take his side of the bet comes from how much the media glosses over, and how much those of the relatively unimportant Bachmann are trumpeted. That was sort of the underlying point.
You may have heard of this,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/bidens-absurd-claims-about-rising-rape-and-murder-rates/2011/10/20/gIQAkq0y1L_blog.html
which would have been a major disaster for a Bachmann instead of just another ho-hum addition to Uncle Joe’s cupboard of rhetorical atrocities.
… oh, wait… was that my cue to launch my “up with Biden” speech?
Sure looks like he said something dumb. My impression of Biden is that he’s kind of famous for saying dumb things. But he’s also respected (as far as I can tell) for actually knowing about foreign policy. I remember all the chuckling about Bosniaks after he mentioned them in the VP debate, only to find that he hadn’t misspoken and was referring to a group other than Bosnians.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Bachmann is stupid. I think she’s crazy, but not stupid.
“Bosniaks” are Bosnians who are neither Croats nor Serbs, IOW the people whom we usually (not entirely accurately) call “Bosnian Muslims”. I’m actually pretty impressed that he knew that.
Can anyone point out something equally impressive that Bachmann knows?
Unlike BHO, Frau Bachmann might know they don’t speak Austrian in Austria.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr7zhnctF4c
Which is really my point here. Quayle never lived down “potato,” but the door doesn’t swing both ways for the parties.
The further point being that Bachmannn is going back to backbenching very soon, whereas BHO and Biden top the ticket. Are we clear yet?
You know who else spoke Austrian?
I miss that catchphrase!
“This is the guy who lost his debate with Sarah Palin”
I remember it a little differently; I remember Palin saying something like ‘I’m not going to answer that question’ and responding with a completely non-sequitur.
I don’t think Biden will be the nominee in ’16 (he’d be very old, older than anyone in history, and in any case the time of the Boomers* may have past). But the biggest meta-problem in Cheney’s tenure was that future political ambition was (near) explicitly renounced. This led to the Bush administration hitting its senior slump earlier and harder than most two term administrations (the loss of Congress is both a cause and effect of this). Particularly in 2008, they punted on a wide range of issues**, including the economy and the wars, trying to run out the clock, but instead bringing (the economy at least) to the point of once in a century crisis. Leaving the window open for a future Biden Presidency is, in itself, a check and balance on the system.
*literally not Boomer, but close enough, it actually makes him older
**there’s a part of this that is proper and even admirable. Both of Obama’s surges in Afghanistan were pushed in the Bush administration, but they didn’t want to saddle the next guy, whomever it would be, with 60K more troops on his first day in office in a decision the new guy wouldn’t have had a hand in.
In 2008 they did not punt. They threw money at problems, but they did not punt. In a large part, their bailouts saved “our moderne economy” (whether that’s a good thing or not)
They temporized on everything in 2008 (e.g. Bear Sterns) and were crossing their fingers for either, 1) people to get their act together 2) a soft landing or 3) that it would hit the fan after they left.
In their defense, after Bear Sterns, they gave clear but quiet warning for everyone to get their act together, So when Lehman hit, their initial instinct to let it fail was fundmentally correct. However, as the interconnectedness began to assert itself, they were really slow to take decisive action, and what actions they initially proposed were laughably weak (i.e. Paulson’s first three page proposal). But again, in their defense, the Congress rejected the first iteration of TARP. (which led to the Paulson on his knees in front of Pelosi incident).
I think TARP is what needed to be done at the time, else the entire cash flow of the economy would have been ground to a halt. But true leadership is not demonstrated at the time of crisis, true leadership is preventing the crisis from happening in the first place.
Biden didn’t say yes, he just refused to answer the question (being Biden, it took him 100 words to say nothing, of course.) Why even comment on such a non-story?
Well, because it’s a funny idea, really.
I mean, I laughed.
Biden is a doofus and people need to learn the truth about the coup
http://OsamaObamaBIDENbiNLAden.blogspot.com/
This website is truly astounding.
Yes, RTod, I’m convinced.
I couldn’t get past the third line.
Too bad – you missed the part about Mark Cuban wearing a false nose and creating a get-rich-quick internet site to disperse code that would destroy America.
That was my favorite part.
Please let him run so we can have a Republican for four more years.
I’m not with you on this one Tom. The clown act on the Demo ticket is at the top, not the bottom. Joe is an island of sensibility and judgment compared to the Prez.
Mr. Koz, the GOP still needs somebody better than BHO: they say in the politics game that you can’t beat something with nothing. [Although with Mitt Romney, we’re sure going to try.]
I’ll continue to admit that I’m not certain McCain would have been a better president than BHO: BHO has done little for the right to be exercised about on foreign policy [although I think this Iraq withdrawal is far too political], and McCain might have put boots on the ground in Libya or elsewhere.
Neither am I sure McCain, who’s also a bit of an idiot, could have done anything better about the fiscal mess either.
As for Biden, that he’s even comparable to not-ready-for-primetimers like Palin or Bachmann is my argument, and my point here. The guy gets away with stuff that nobody should and few others do.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Granted that it’s possible to cast the VP as the designated point of derision for the administration, deflecting the worst of the criticism from the guy on top. Still.
Biden gets away with misspeakings, because Biden is smart and reasonably likeable. You get him talking about foreign policy, and he’s able to school the best of them.
“Mr. Koz, the GOP still needs somebody better than BHO: they say in the politics game that you can’t beat something with nothing. [Although with Mitt Romney, we’re sure going to try.]”
Actually, in this case I think we can. Though for the sake of America, I hope we don’t. They say that no one in the GOP has any enthusiasm for Mitt, even if some fraction intend to vote for him. That may be true, but I for one am an outlier. I think the 2012 version of Mitt is my favorite Presidential candidate since Phil Gramm.
“I’ll continue to admit that I’m not certain McCain would have been a better president than BHO: BHO has done little for the right to be exercised about on foreign policy [although I think this Iraq withdrawal is far too political], and McCain might have put boots on the ground in Libya or elsewhere.”
Well, we differ on that point then because I am completely certain of it. Whatever would happened in foreign policy we wouldn’t have PPACA under President McCain and we’d have 7% unemployment instead of 9%, which is a huge difference.
Me too, for completely different reasons. McCain would have us bombing Iran and ruining the US relationship with every country with a Muslim population. He would have had us try to run the show during the Arab Spring, guaranteeing its failure. He would have run the deficit up higher than BHO could possibly.
This is a guy who either didn’t know or didn’t care why an “overhead projector” in a planetarium would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He was just another example of IOKIYAR.