Who Could Be Next?

A clever bit from Talking Points Memo

Biden recently brought under Sharia Law with terrorist fistbump ...

They Got to Biden

It's getting harder to lampoon our political discourse, but thankfully people still dare to try.

Pucker Up, Joe

Caption: It may be lazy and ungrateful, but it's also cute and furry. Joe Biden and his boss can kiss it whenever they want.

Image credit: The Dawg Blog by Dawgdad (Click to see the whole picture - it's cute.)



There are some great things about not having cable. One of them is that you get to miss seeing Joe Biden telling all the people the Democrats in DC have screwed in the last eighteen months to get off their lazy asses and support the Democrats.

Gregg Levine filled me in this morning:

Vice President Joe Biden made room in his busy schedule Wednesday to appear on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to address the much-reported enthusiasm gap between fired-up Tea-publicans and a disappointed Democratic base. How do I know that was his reason? He said so:

What I’m doing. . . one of the reasons I wanna be on your show is to tell the progressives out there, you know, get in gear, man. First of all, there’s a great deal at stake.

No duh. Really? Progressives are the ones that need to be reminded that there’s a great deal at stake?
...
Actually, Mr. Vice President, you didn’t mention a single thing that your administration or this Democratically controlled 111th Congress has gotten done. You are just telling progressives out there that they “better get energized,” that they “get in gear,” that they “should not stay home” come November.

Why? Because. . . because. . . Pete Sessions!

Biden Scolds Dem Voters for Enthusiasm Gap; Tells Progressives to “Get in Gear”

Yes, because apparently we haven't been begging these same clowns who are now calling us lazy to actually differentiate themselves by their actions from their predecessors, to little or no effect. Apparently, they haven't been throwing us from the sleigh one by one, hoping they'll have enough supporters left come election time. Apparently, we didn't warn them about all this, repeatedly.

Levine, a former advertising consultant, makes some great points about why products fail to catch on with consumers. Sometimes, it's the attitude of the product's sellers that is the problem. They'll berate the consumer for not being able to understand how great the product is. Which is true enough, at times. The problem is that berating them does no good, because afterward they still won't know why the product is good, and they'll be annoyed at the people berating them.

My professional background gives me another insight. I spent more time than I care to remember testing software and computer systems that other people designed. Those other people, when confronted with the fact that their product didn't work, would sometimes berate the testers, saying that they didn't know how to use it, didn't use it the way it was supposed to be used, etc. When, as often happened, the product was released despite objections, and the customer told us it sucked for the same reason that the testers had, I cannot recall one time when those people admitted that maybe they should have listened more carefully. I think I'd remember that, too, because it would have been an extraordinary moment.

Most of us don't work in advertising, and most of us haven't tested products for a living, but nearly all of us have encountered this situation in some form. Perhaps it was a friend or family member who tells us we're crazy cheapskates not to buy whatever bits of Amway garbage he's selling. Perhaps it's a boss who blames the failure of his brilliant plan for corporate domination on his lazy, no good employees. The scenarios may differ, but the blame being cast on us for these peoples' lack of attention to reality and unwillingness to listen is a constant through all of them.
Caption: This is a picture of our economy. We're the red line, which many economists are lazy and ungrateful enough to think is a bad thing.

Image credit: Calculated Risk

The Democrats in DC have been a colossal failure. They have failed utterly at a long list of issues. That's the problem. Gays can't say "Oh, they didn't give us a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but at least they're doing everything in their power to save the jobs of gay servicemembers." People worried about the financial sector can't say "Yes, TARP and the Fed bailouts were a problem, but we have meaningful financial reform." People who wanted real health care reform can't tell themselves that it won't matter so much once the economy gets moving again. People who want the government to return to the rule of law can't tell themselves that the government is being ruled by people who follow their principles, and that someday we can hope for better. Unions can't tell themselves that it doesn't matter quite so much that the economy isn't getting better, because at least they have a card check system. People who want us to get out of Iraq can't tell themselves that at least we're not further enmeshed in Afghanistan.

What's worse, none of the people concerned about those issues can look at the others and say "They haven't taken care of this, but they've made progress with those things."

Caption: Pollster's composite of Right Direction/Wrong Track polls. Self-identified progressives and liberals make up roughly 25 percent of the population. Looks to me like someone else is unhappy besides us. Do you think maybe this is the Democrats' real problem?

Image credit: Snapshot of today's Pollster page


The only time that Vice President Biden, President Obama, and all their sycophantic enablers talk to us is when they tell us to get off our lazy, ungrateful butts and support them. They can call us lazy and ungrateful all they want, but we aren't the ones who failed at these things. We voted for them, wrote the letters, made the calls, signed the petitions. At the end of the day, we did our jobs, which was to get them into office and tell them what needed to change. They didn't provide that change. That's the bottom line.

The DC Democrats have failed utterly at everything they were sent there to do. They'd be much better served admitting they were wrong, and trying to do better. Going by past experience, I don't think that's going to happen. Berating us for not seeing the genius of the product is beyond pointless and absurd - it's counterproductive.

We know their product sucks. We're living in it.

Afterword: Taylor Marsh adds this thought:

We haven’t even gotten to the serial political messaging malpractice of Obama’s White House, which is the worst I’ve ever seen. Biden proved it again last night, though at least he didn’t blame movement progressives. He simply is the latest to insult the people Dems need in November, saying basically that the Democratic base has no other alternative, so Wake up and save our ass.

I honestly don’t know how Ms. Maddow controlled herself from offering a rejoinder the likes of which would have deservedly blown Mr. Biden’s hair askew. Something like, “Mr. Vice President, surely you understand that Democrats in 2008 didn’t elect a majority and Barack Obama in order to compromise with Republicans, something Bush never did with less.”

VP Joe Biden: ‘Get in gear, man. … You better get energized.’

[italics from original]

That's another part of this that is so annoying - the pathetic excuses about how so little could be done, because there just weren't enough of the right people running things. The people running things are the ones these guys supported. And as Taylor observes, they had a lot more going for them than George W. Bush did.

Dear Whoever Reads This

Image credit: Logo for kmail

As readers may have noticed, there hasn't been much new material here recently. Reality has been getting too depressing lately, I needed an escape. Sadly, I still read my e-mails, and I received this a little while ago from someone who claims to be the Vice President:

From: Vice President Joe Biden
To: My Real Self
Subject: Afghanistan
Date: Dec 2, 2009 7:09 PM

Real Self --

Last night, President Obama laid out his plan to defend our national interest by refocusing our efforts on three clear goals: defeating al Qaeda, stabilizing Pakistan, and breaking the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan.

To achieve these goals, the President has authorized the rapid deployment of 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, with a firm commitment to begin bringing our troops home in 2011.

It's a clean break from the failed Afghanistan policy of the Bush administration, and a new, focused strategy that can succeed.

Please take a moment to watch the President's address to the nation and read more about his plan:

http://my.democrats.org/AfghanistanAddress

Our new strategy ends the era of blank checks for Afghanistan's leaders, facilitates a responsible transition to Afghan security forces, and begins bringing our troops home in 2011.

Please take a moment to listen to President Obama outline his plan -- and pass this along to anyone you know who wants to learn more:

http://my.democrats.org/AfghanistanAddress

Thank you,

Vice President Joe Biden

I saved myself half an hour by reading the speech instead. Turns out, I got all that fence-straddling silliness over with in about five minutes. Here's where it gets particularly good:

Let me be clear: none of this will be easy. The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be an enduring test of our free society, and our leadership in the world. And unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the 20th Century, our effort will involve disorderly regions and diffuse enemies.

Obama's Afghan speech: Full text

Of course, this "enduring test" will start ending in eighteen months. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out, there was a little something for everybody: the generals get more troops and resources, the Afghan government gets a new lease on life, the critics of that government's corruption get a wave, and the peaceniks get a schedule. It's all very Obamaesque.

I couldn't help myself. I wrote back:

I read the speech, and I didn't see a plan there. What I saw looked like a declaration of principles - goals if you will. The plan still looks a bit sketchy. We've been killing people in Afghanistan for eight years now. It doesn't seem to have gotten us any closer to a solution than we were in 2003. If anything, things are worse now. Every time we bomb a mosque, a home, or a wedding party we create new potential enemies, and new groups of people who want us to just get the hell out of their country. How do you get around that? How are we going to find the Taliban (or Al Qaeda) in a country where few of us speak the language and we have even fewer friends than we did when we started? Afghans are mountain people. They're naturally distrustful of strangers to begin with. When those strangers come and kill some of them for seemingly no reason, it's not going to make them more kindly disposed to us. We've been doing that for eight years.

How are we going to make Afghanistan's government less corrupt? Will we, or the United Nations, be taking it over?

Afghanistan isn't so much a country as group of individual territories loosely tied together by a central government. If it ever had a national identity, it's been savaged by the last three decades of conflict and theocracy. Are we really prepared to sign up to change all that? Counterinsurgency operations take time. Think in terms of decades. Do we have that long? When are you guys going to fix the economy, instead of producing ever more expensive band-aids? We could use those tens of billions of dollars fixing our own country, instead of breaking someone else's.

It's great that NATO is supporting this effort. That's important. But I just can't get over the idea that this is all way too late and will be way more costly than it's worth to anyone. I hope that I'm wrong, because it's clear we're in it for the long haul regardless.

The Vice President probably won't read it, but maybe someone will.

Mine has been a gradual change from reluctant support for what seemed like a necessary war in Afghanistan, to a gradual realization that we've made such a mess of it that there may be no way to recover the situation, even if we can adequately define what "recover the situation" means. Do we stop at finding Osama Bin Laden (Remember him? Big terrorist type; had something to do with 9/11?), or do we try to leave a stable national government in a place that hasn't really had one for decades?

I think I'll go back to ignoring reality for a while longer. It's clearly a popular avocation.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): As usual, Jon Stewart's take on this is instructive:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
30,000
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The short version - forget Vietnam, this sounds a lot like Iraq.

So, Next Time They'll Do Better?

At a campaign fundraiser for a Democratic U.S. Representative today, Vice President Joe Biden laid out that familiar scary scenario that Democratic politicians always bring up, in one form or another, at fundraisers:

Vice President Biden warned that Republicans will try to "break the back of our effort" in the 2010 elections by trying to win 35 seats from traditionally Republican districts that are now held by Democrats.

Biden: If GOP Takes Back Traditionally Red Seats, It's 'End Of The Road'

What will happen if this dastardly plot succeeds?

"If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do. This is their one shot," he went on. "If they don't break the back of our effort in this upcoming election, you're going to see the things we said we're for happen."

Biden: If GOP Takes Back Traditionally Red Seats, It's 'End Of The Road'

This will happen, he said, because if they fail this time they'll start being bipartisan.

Several questions occur to me after reading this:

- So, now they're going to do what they set out to do? Having a commanding majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate wasn't enough? They need more time?

- What is it Obama (and Biden) are aiming to do? So far, I haven't heard a damn thing I could write legislation to accomplish. Based on what's happened with the health care reform bills, Congress hasn't been hearing it, either.

- Obama could close Gitmo and the other black sites without any help or permission from Congress. Why aren't they closed yet?

- Republicans are bound to win back some seats in 2010, just based on the fact that the Democrats have accomplished so little and have looked bad doing it. There's also the mid-year curse to consider, when Republicans tend to do better due to their voters' tendency to go to the polls more reliably. What makes Biden think they won't claim victory and press on as they have been? It's only when people have hit rock bottom that they start to think of changing their ways, and not winning all of those seats back doesn't sound like rock bottom to me. What makes Biden so sure they're there yet?

Charlie Brown never did learn that Lucy would never hold the football for him, but most of us, sooner or later, notice when such a pattern is developing. The Democrats have now controlled Congress for almost three years. They haven't accomplished anything besides passing a wimpy stimulus bill, appointing a Supreme Court justice who is a corporate-friendly centrist, and a cap and trade bill for carbon emissions. While the latter is definitely a good thing, I'm really having a tough time reconciling the fact that Democrats comfortably control both houses of Congress and the White House with these paltry accomplishments.

All that's required to be skeptical of Biden's claims is to ask whether they've done what we sent them to Congress to do:

Is the Iraq War ending? No faster than it was planned by President Bush.

Has the rule of law been restored at CIA? Are war crimes, including the clear case of starting a war we had no justification for starting, being investigated? Not in the least.

Is government more open and accountable? Where are those photographs again?

Are the banks and securities industries, which nearly wrecked our economy, now being forced to change their ways? I kill me sometimes ...

Now these guys are hoping that a health care bill will save them, because they haven't accomplished any of the other things we've sent them there to do.

Under the circumstances, the Vice President will just have to excuse my skepticism.

Dear Senator Biden

As Glenn Greenwald relates, you made a speech in Kettering, Ohio, in which you said this:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move past the politics of division and attack," the Democratic vice-presidential nominee told a crowd of 2000 in Kettering. "Over the past week, Republicans have gone way over the top in my view, calling Barack Obama every name in the book, and it probably will get worse in the next three and a half to four days."

"Well look, if you look at who he is, what he's done, and what he plans to do for this country, if you work for us in the closing days and choose hope over fear," Biden urged supporters, "after next Tuesday, the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else - they will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander in chief Barack Obama!"

Biden: Come Tuesday, Obama's Critics Will Be Calling Him Commander-In-Chief

[emphasis added]

I've been a critic of Obama's at times. I've also found reason to praise him on occasion. I'll vote for him tomorrow. So, I suppose I could also be considered a supporter. Either way, I'm not going to be referring to him as "our commander in chief".

You see, he's not going to be our commander in chief. As Greenwald puts it:

"[C]ommander in chief" is a military term, which reflects the core military dynamic: superiors issue orders which subordinates obey. That isn't supposed to be the relationship between the U.S. President and civilian American citizens, but because the mindless phrase "our commander in chief" has become interchangeable with "the President," that is exactly the attribute -- supreme, unquestionable authority in all arenas -- which has increasingly come to define the power of the President. Recall the explanation by GOP Sen. Kit Bond in June when explaining why telecoms should be immunized for lawbreaking after being "directed" by George Bush to allow illegal government spying on their customers:

I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do.

The Single Worst Expression In American Politics

As usual, he's right about this. Obama won't be our commander, any more than President Bush is our commander. It says so right here in the Constitution:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Constitution of the United States (Article II, Section 2)

See? Only the military has to call him "Commander In Chief". The rest of us call him something else: our employee.

After thirty years in the Senate, I'd think you'd have caught on to that by now.

So please, follow Glenn's advice and stop using this ridiculous terminology. It's not correct, and it certainly doesn't strike me as democratic.

Biden? Yawn

Barack Obama chose his Vice Presidential candidate today:

Barack Obama introduced Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware on Saturday as a man "ready to step in and be president," and the newly minted running mate quickly turned his campaign debut into a slashing attack on Republicans seeking four more years in the White House.

Sen. John McCain would have to "figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at" when considering his own economic future, said Biden, jabbing at the man he called his personal friend.

It was a reference to McCain's recent inartful admission that he was not sure how many homes he owns.

Barack Obama introduces running mate Joe Biden as 'man with a distinguished record'

When did "inartful" become a word? Why can't we just say "misinformed", "badly phrased", or "stupid" when that's what it is? Please send someone by my place with a hypodermic needle and pink fluid if I ever use that word.

OK, I"m better now...

Biden's "distinguished record" might possibly seem distinguished if one were a banker or an ran an insurance company. For the rest of us, though, he just seems like another one of the people who are always telling us to shut up about not having health care or money while he gets plenty of both - some of it at our expense. He's known for having foreign policy expertise, of course, but as others have observed, it didn't stop him from suporting the Iraq War. Obama, with his lack of such expertise, managed to figure out that invading Iraq was a bad idea. Beginners luck? Maybe, but I'd say that Biden has a talent for overlooking the obvious.

Typically, I'd put a picture up here of Biden or Biden and Obama, because - well, because it's what I do. In this case, though, I'm not that interested in seeing his smarmy face on my blog at the moment.

That's all water under the bridge, though. At this point, what I really don't like about Biden is that Democratic voters don't like Biden. They had a chance to vote for him in the primaries, and if the results are any indication, "anyone but Biden" was the clear winner. You could use that phrase on just about any candidate who isn't Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, of course, but Biden's percentage was in the low single digits. Recall what I wrote a few days ago:

Whenever the subject of who would be a good Vice-Presidential candidate has come up at other blogs, I've always taken a pass, except to suggest Hillary Clinton. What I always write is that the most important thing is that Obama chooses a candidate who will help him shore up support in his own party, both the leaders and the rank and file.

Obama's Choice For Vice President

Does a guy who polled between two percent and five percent in the primaries sound like the kind of guy those folks will run out to vote for?

Biden is a good speaker. As his remarks upon being introduced show, he won't be reluctant to take on McCain's noise machine. At least, he won't until Obama undercuts him like he did Wes Clark. Clark would have been a great veep candidate if both Obama and John Kerry hadn't slagged him.

The only real plus I can see is that Biden might be more helpful at getting legislation passed through the Senate. As Kevin Drum observes:

[T]here really is some value in Biden's experience. Maybe. All four of the most recent Democratic presidents have chosen their VPs from the ranks of the Senate, and I'll grant that the results have been fairly mixed. Still, the Senate is pretty clearly going to be ground zero for getting Obama's program passed into actual legislation, and Biden has a pretty decent track record of working the legislative process. So on that score it might be genuinely helpful.

Biden's Experience

This was another thing I was hoping to find in a V.P. candidate. If Obama manages to get elected, Biden might be an asset.

Hopefully, Biden will help attract the kind of Democratic voters who don't support Obama. I have my doubts, though. In fact, after this latest of many bad decisions, I'm starting to think that the Obama campaign is doomed.

Slobber And Spittle Endorses John Edwards

[Why is this man smiling? He's won the prestigious SnS Presidential endorsement. A printout of this endorsement, plus $1.25 will entitle the awardee to a refillable coffee at Denny's near you. And they'll let you keep the printout, too. NOTE: Exact monetary value of this prize varies from location to location.]

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've spoken most favorably of two Presidential candidates, Chris Dodd and John Edwards. Hillary Clinton has a mixed record here, and Barack Obama was very lucky to receive any praise at all. So, it's probably no surprise that this highly coveted endorsement[/SNARK] came down to those first two.

The excesses and foolhardiness of the Bush Administration have left many problems for the next Presidential administration to deal with. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most visible, but they're not the only ones. In fact, as bad as things look on those two fronts at the moment, they pale in significance to this country when compared to the constitutional crises, increasing economic insecurity, and deterioration that this government's incompetence have caused at home. Our government has decided that spying on its citizens is perfectly OK, that kidnapping and torturing both its own citizens and foreigners is acceptable, and that all those laws that were put in place to limit government power are just advice that can be ignored at any time. The Bush Administration have violated at least four laws that are specifically designed to limit government power, and yet they'll probably get away with it if Nancy Pelosi and the rest of Congress continue to shirk their responsibilities in that matter.

Chris Dodd has so far been the only one of the candidates to stand up to any of this in a meaningful way. Last month, he dug in his heels, bucking his own majority leader in order to stop the awful FISA bill that was to be considered in the Senate. While Joe Biden offered immediate, unequivocal support for Dodd, the other two candidates who are sitting U.S. Senators, Obama and Clinton, had to be begged and cajoled by their supposed base to do anything at all. That stand netted Dodd lots of positive coverage, both here and at most progressive blogs. That might have earned him the SnS endorsement, but he has an unfortunate legislative record in other areas.

Dodd has some rather close ties with some of the more egregious financial industries in this country, and the insurance industry in particular. His support of the recent "Class Action Fairness Act" (CAFA), which despite what its name says actually decreases the fairness of class action suits brought against negligent companies, is one of the more recent examples of how beholden he can be to them. His record is by no means egregious, but it certainly is troubling.

The main reason he didn't get the endorsement, though, is that so far he hasn't caught on with the voters. Pollster, when it bothers to rate his popularity at all, estimates it at less than one percent.

Edwards, at least in his public statements is unequivocal in his support of our civil rights:

We are not the country of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. We are not the country of secret surveillance and government behind closed doors. We are Americans, and we're better than that.

While this statement alone could be considered empty rhetoric, reading his positions on specific civil rights problems that have presented themselves in the last few years shows a consistent pattern of respect for human rights. Contrast this with Hillary Clinton, who when asked about the question of what power grabs by the Bush Administration she would roll back as President, replied:

I will conduct a very serious review of how the Bush-Cheney administration has grabbed power. Everywhere we look, we see that. They have ignored checks and balances, they have disregarded the separation of powers, they have this theory of the so-called unitary executive and then Vice President Cheney has a whole different theory about how he's a fourth branch of government.

Would a President Clinton Cede Powers?

[Note: That's a second hand quote by a Washington Post editorial. In a quick search, I was unable to find the original.]

Wasn't Senator Clinton present during all those power grabs? What's there to study? I'd think it would be plainly obvious what needed to be done by now, no matter what one's position about the relative importance of civil liberties and safety.

Edwards has been equally unequivocal about the need to redress the growing economic imbalances between the rich and the rest of us. As the New York Times observes:

Whatever their differences with Mr. Edwards, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have moved toward him on several issues, like health care and trade. In all three Democratic campaigns, advisers say they believe that economic anxiety has made voters more open to government action than they once were.

“People say, ‘How do you know this is going to resonate?’” said Leo Hindery Jr., a former chief executive of media and communications companies, who is Mr. Edwards’s senior economic adviser. “And the answer is, ‘It’s a different world.’”

Two Candidates, Two Fortunes, Two Distinct Views of Wealth

This NYT article contrasts the fortunes and views of Mitt Romney and Edwards. Both became rich in their previous careers. The difference between them, if one reads between the lines, is that Romney doesn't believe in "the two Americas" that Edwards talked about in 2004. The reason, if you read that article carefully, is that Romney's never been to the other America that most of us live in or have lived in at some point in our lives. Edwards has.

Edwards is a guy who did what we all supposedly can do in this country - brought himself up by his own bootstraps. That he did so but is still clearly mindful of the people he grew up with is clearly irritating to the "rugged individualists", like Romney, who never really had to worry about paying for their medical care, or getting their kids through college, or just whether to heat their homes or feed themselves. Those of us who have know perfectly well that there are two Americas. To quote from the NYT article again:

“Some people come from nothing to being wildly successful and their response is, ‘I did this on my own,’” Mr. Edwards said in an interview. “I came to a different conclusion. I believe that I did work hard, and I think people should work hard, but I think my country was there for me every step of the way.”

Today, he added, “the problem is all the economic growth is going to a very small group of people.”

Two Candidates, Two Fortunes, Two Distinct Views of Wealth

While I don't find it entirely satisfactory, Edwards' health care plan is more progressive than Clinton's and more complete than Obama's. As such, I'd say he's ahead on that issue, too. Edwards at least allows for the idea of single payer somewhere down the road, and presents a real alternative for people who don't have the means to afford their own. Clinton's doesn't even mention the concept, as far as I can see, and while it does offer means-testing, the details of that plan, which could affect many of us seeking such relief, are sorely lacking.

While he certainly doesn't have the foreign policy cred of a Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, or even Hillary Clinton, Edwards' positions on Iraq and Afghanistan strike me as both thoughtful and realistic. Frankly, anyone whose opinion about what we should do next hasn't changed probably hasn't been paying attention. Here's an excerpt from a recent NYT interview of Edwards:

Q. How did you go from a plan that emphasized the gradual reduction of forces and training of Iraqi forces to a plan that calls for removing all of the forces within ten months?

A. Because it is now two years later. At that point, what I was suggesting was, again let me go back to the bigger picture. The question from my perspective is that I have never believed that there was a military solution in Iraq, don't believe it today. I think the issue is how do you maximize the chances of achieving a political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia because I think that political reconciliation is the foundation for any long-term stability in Iraq. They have now, at this moment, had well over four and a half years to make some serious progress toward a political solution. They have not done it, and so what we have been doing has not worked. It clearly has not worked. And my view is that we need to shift the responsibility to them, make it clear that we are leaving. That is where the eight to ten brigades come from. Then, as aggressively as can reasonably be achieved, to continue a steady redeployment until all combat troops are out in roughly nine to ten months. Now I am not married to that specific timetable. If my military leadership came to me and said we need another month or some additional time, I would certainly take that into consideration what they are saying. But it is my job as commander in chief to set the policy parameters, which is exactly what I was doing.

Interview with John Edwards

To quote General George Patton on the subject of delegation: Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. Of course, it helps if, as in Patton's case, you have a pretty good idea what is possible. Edwards seems to understand this.

The bottom line, though, is that our domestic problems dwarf the foreign ones at the moment. There are days when the America I see around me doesn't feel like America anymore. It feels like some science-fiction doppleganger America where the facade of freedom exists but underneath is only fear and exploitation. If we're going to return to the America that values freedom and opportunity both here and abroad, I think John Edwards is our best choice.

NOTE: This endorsement in no way means that SnS will become a cheerleading site for Edwards. I'm not a good partisan and never have been. If I think someone's screwed up, I say so. That won't change. It also doesn't mean I'm going to be extra critical of other candidates. When they do something right, they deserve praise. If anything, the reverse is true. Edwards gets the endorsement because he earned more praise than the others. Hey, I even praised President Bush when he managed to do something right.

Then Don't Micromanage, Set A Goal

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) said this today about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposal to instruct President Bush that he only has 150,000 troops to play with in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be a "tragic mistake" if Bush chooses to increase troops. But Biden, D-Del., said cutting off funds was not an option.

"As a practical matter there is no way to say this is going to be stopped," Biden said regarding a troop increase, unless enough congressional Republicans join Democrats in convincing Bush the strategy is wrong.

Biden added that it probably would be an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers if Democrats were to block Bush's efforts as commander in chief after Congress had voted to authorize going to war.

"It's unconstitutional to say, you can go, but we're going to micromanage," Biden said.

Pelosi Hints at Denying Bush Iraq Funds

OK, then set a goal for Bush to meet. You can do that, Senator Biden. Tell the President we're getting out of Iraq in a short time, and tell him to come up with a plan for doing it. Impeach him if he doesn't.

Of course, Biden will find an excuse not to do this, too. But there's no reason he can't besides lacking the will. Congress has the power to declare war. It can certainly undeclare it if it wants. It's time to bring the troops out of Iraq, and if Biden doesn't get that he can forget about being President. He doesn't have what it takes.

(h/t Swopa at Firedoglake)