Archive for October, 2008

The Comedy of Joe Biden

Posted by: Jason | October 21st, 2008 · 11:21 AM

Why isn’t Joe Biden being viewed as one of the worst vice presidential picks in modern history? He’s certainly warranted it.

Sarah Palin, by contrast, has been attacked almost daily for trivial matters we’d normally excuse in a millisecond.

But after all the Tina Fey skits, should we really assume that it’s Palin, not Biden, who warrants the label of “bad pick” this year? I’d like to tally the list of vice presidential gaffes, then you decide:

Sarah Palin:

1. We learned weeks after her joining the McCain campaign that her 17-year old daughter was pregnant. This made her a bad parent.

2. While speaking at church (privately and before her selection as McCain’s running mate) on a random Sunday morning months ago, just after she learned her son was being sent to Iraq, she prayed to her congregation that when decisions are made by our leaders with regard to war and peace, that she hoped those decisions were somehow part of God’s plan for us. This made her incapable of supporting the seperation of church and state.

3. Apparently familiar with the fact that there are several versions of the “Bush Doctrine”, when asked in an interview by Charlie Gibson “do you support the Bush Doctrine?”, she replied “which part?”. This made her incapable of understanding foreign policy.

4. In an interview with Katie Couric, Palin froze during a question when she couldn’t recall which banking industry reforms John McCain had supported in his entire senate career, other than a 2005 bill to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which she had brought up. This made her unaware of the issues.

Fair enough… You can decide if this list makes a vice presidential candidate warrant the scrutiny over intelligence and capability as Sarah Palin has.

But now, I give you the great Joe Biden, who’s yet to receive one major media story questioning his ability to be a competent vice president:

1. Weeks ago, just after we learned about the economic crisis, Joe Biden criticized John McCain for not being straight with the people. He suggested that when the stock market crashed in 1929, Franklin Roosevelt went on television to assure Americans, just as Barack Obama did. Trouble is, in 1929, Herbert Hoover was president, not Roosevelt. Nor was the television invented yet.

2. Joe Biden talks about his “scrappy” Scranton, PA roots, as a measure for how he understands average working Americans. Yet he hasn’t lived in Scranton, PA since he was 10 years old. Biden has actually resided in posh Greenville, the wealthiest area in the state of Delaware, for decades.

3. In his debate with Sarah Palin, Joe Biden explained that when he wants to pick the brains of average Americans, he “goes down to Katie’s restaurant” to meet with folks and talk about the issues. Trouble is, Katie’s closed down in the early 1990’s and hasn’t reopened since.

4. At a recent Missouri rally, Joe Biden asked State Senator Chuck Graham to “stand up Chuck, let em see ya” in a gesture for him to be recognized for his support. State Senator Chuck Graham is crippled and in a wheelchair and cannot stand.

5. Two weeks ago, Joe Biden said that Barack Obama “understands a three letter word, J.O.B.S”.

6. Joe Biden on Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me.”

7. In Biden’s first speech to the nation after his selection as Barack Obama’s running mate, he pronounced “let me introduce you to the next president, Barack America!”.

8. In the primary debates this year, Biden said of Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

9. Just after the AIG bailout, Joe Biden suggested that it wasn’t right for the federal government to bailout financial giants as President Bush had suggested. He forgot to ask his running mate however, who supported the measure. Obama had to correct Biden to their ticket’s position later on NBC. “I think Joe should have waited, as well,” Obama said on NBC’s Today show.

10. Sunday night, as in two days ago, Joe Biden said this: “Mark my words,” Biden told donors at a Seattle fund-raiser Sunday night. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. “Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. “And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.”

Which is worse? The most popular governor in America, Sarah Palin, who holds an 80% approval rating with her state’s population, who’s daughter happens to be pregnant, who prays at her church that matters of war and peace are in God’s hands, who asked “which part?” back to Charlie Gibson, and who froze when asked about John McCain’s entire record of banking reform?

Or, the 35-year senator, who believed FDR was president and televisions were invented in 1929, who claims he’s from Scranton but lives in Greenville, who boasts about his time at closed down restaurants, who asks crippled people to stand up and be recognized on stage, who believes “jobs” is a three-letter word, who believes Hillary Clinton would be a better pick than he would, who says “Barack America” in his first national address on the ticket, who makes snide remarks about African and Indian Americans alike (that’s another matter), who gaffes the response to the AIG bailout, and who suggests, just last Sunday, that Barack Obama will not only be tested by an international crisis within six months of being elected president, but that when Americans view the response it may “not be apparent that we’re right”.

So you decide folks.

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What You May Be Missing About Sarah Palin

Posted by: Jason | October 3rd, 2008 · 4:39 PM

I’m not sure there has ever been a political candidate who has survived more campaign challenges than Governor Sarah Palin.

Days after her selection to the McCain campaign, she faced the harsh (and unfairly personal) criticism of her role as a mother. How dare someone run for Vice President with the burden of caring for five children? How dare someone so conservative allow their seventeen year old daughter to get pregnant? Nevermind her opponent Joe Biden, who lost his wife to a horrible car accident upon his election to the senate, left his two young sons alone each day as he trekked off to Washington DC. She’s a mother, mother’s can’t work and raise children!

Then we entered the cycle of personal attacks on her faith. Her church, it seems, actually prays for the armed forces, hoping that in some way, what unfolds around the world on a daily basis is part of God’s plan for us. Palin even spoke of God while giving a church discussion on Sunday. The nerve! Nevermind that Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington, and just about every major leader in American history has prayed for such things (in non-church settings). No… it seems a leaked video of a Sunday appearance at your church disqualifies your belief entirely of the seperation of church and state in Palin’s case.

Finally we entered the “Palin is stupid phase”. It seems candidates with all of five weeks experience on the national stage shouldn’t hesitate for a second in explaining the nuances of the Bush Doctrine, or shouldn’t blink before naming ever major piece of legislation John McCain has ever sponsored on banking reform.

Nevermind that in the past three weeks alone, Joe Biden mistakingly suggested that Franklin Roosevelt was president during the Great Depression (Herbert Hoover was), that Roosevelt spoke to the nation by television at the time (TV wasn’t invented yet), that he asked a crippled man on stage to stand up during a rally, that he suggested we ban coal in the United States, that he talks about Scranton but lives in posh Greenville, DE, and that he suggested he frequently meets with “average folks” at Katy’s Restaurant in last night’s debate, an establishment which closed down in 1990 (I grew up near Katy’s). Such examples are trivial you see… that’s just “Joe being Joe”.

But there’s something more the mainstream media is missing about Sarah Palin, and I suspect it’s something the public at large may be coming to understand now: Sarah Palin has done in five weeks what Barack Obama took more than a year to accomplish; being a credible candidate.

For those of you still undecided about the talents of Governor Palin, I’d ask you to consider this. Barack Obama launched his candidacy over a year ago in Illinois, having the same questions raised about his ability to lead as Palin recently has. Was he ready? Did he understand the issues?

But in recent comparison after the second national debate, we should remember that Barack Obama had something very important that Sarah Palin didn’t, the long and tedious testing ground of the primary election to sculpt his skills.

Is there any doubt that Obama supporters were a little nervous last week before his first national debate against a seasoned veteran in John McCain? Of course they were. But here was a man who had slowly crafted his skill set in the debate halls of the Democratic primary process, talking with candidates Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson, almost on a weekly basis. Here was a man who spent hours upon hours in practice mode, where rather than debating more aggressive Republican opponents at first, was able to mold his talents in easier discussions of mild differences in policy positions with other Democrats, those on stage agreeing with him more than 90% of the time.

Sarah Palin had no such luxury. Barely five weeks onto the national stage, without a single minute of national debate experience under her belt, in front of the largest television audience a debate has seen since 1992 (Neilson numbers are out today), Sarah Palin walked onto the stage with a 35-year senator in Joe Biden, a wildly talented debater with uber foreign policy experience, and not only held her own for 90 minutes, but by many accounts, won the night through her personal style and common touch.

Say what you want about Governor Sarah Palin, about her particular positions you may disagree with, about her folksy style that attempts to speak to regular people and not elitist Washingtonians, her western Alaska mannerisms, this is an extremely talented woman who at 44 years old, has a very bright future within the Republican Party and within American politics as a whole.

Could Barack Obama have debated John McCain “five weeks” into his campaign? Ask yourself that question the next time you hesitate on Governor Sarah Palin’s ability. I know I will.

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