Joe Biden on The Huffington Post

White House Party Crashers Met President, May Face Criminal Charges (PHOTOS)

2009-11-27T11:51:34Z

The White House released a picture today of Michaele Salahi shaking hands with the president despite earlier reports that the couple who allegedly crashed the state dinner never came in contact with Obama.

This revelation comes just hours after the Secret Service took responsibility for the breech. Director Mark Sullivan told the AP that his agency failed to verify whether the couple was invited to the party and expressed his deep concern and embarrassment. He went on to say that measures have been taken to ensure this will not happen again.

Despite that, the Secret Service has not ruled out bringing charges against Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The agency maintains they were not on the guest list despite protestations from the couple, who are auditioning for the Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives of DC", that they did not crash the party.

"As this moves closer to a criminal investigation there's less that we can say," spokesman Jim Mackin said. "I don't want to jeopardize what could be a criminal investigation. We're not leaving any option off the table at this point."

No specific charges were mentioned but the Salahis lawyer, Paul Gardner, claims the couple were indeed invited and that there is no risk of punishment. He posted a comment on Facebook saying, "My clients were cleared by the White House, to be there."

William Bradley: Heads Should Roll Over Obama State Dinner Security Breach

2009-11-27T10:25:22Z

It turns out to be shockingly easy to assassinate President Barack Obama.

In a fabulous show of security, it emerged late Wednesday that a pair of reality show contestants succeeded in crashing the Obamas' first state dinner. One posted photos of the couple with Vice President Joe Biden and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who she referred to as "Ron," on her Facebook page.

Amusing though it may seem, this situation is very serious, and totally unacceptable. Heads should roll over this.

President Barack Obama hosted Prime Minister Singh of the Republic of India at a State Dinner on November 24, 2009.

It's great that his Secret Service detail liked Obama enough to give him the watch they wear for his 46th birthday two years ago, a watch he wears constantly -- it's a terrific watch, I have one -- but this is ridiculous.

Especially since Obama, the first black president, assailed by right-wing extremists as illegitimate, gets far more death threats than any previous president.

The guy, who easily penetrated White House security, looks like a total dweeb. Not that appearances mean much. But the reality is that the woman, who also easily penetrated White House security, could have been a serious threat, too.

Let me tell you a little story.

As a political writer, I have frequently penetrated various security schemes to get to a principal. I'm recalling now a cover story I did for the LA Weekly a decade ago on Michael Milken, the infamous global financier. His handlers, Democrats all, imagined I was out to demolish him. Not exactly so. I viewed him as a flawed genius. But they granted no access. So I took to finding out where he would be, showing up there, and chatting with him.

A spokeswoman for Bravo says the couple who crashed a White House state dinner were trying to get on a reality TV show.

In the end, I easily penetrated his big dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, despite not having an invitation. What I did have was one of my Armani suits and an authoritative yet polite attitude. Even though Milken's security was seemingly everywhere.

It was child's play, actually, and, notwithstanding his vaunted, and very high-priced, Hollywood security detail, I ended up talking with Milken for 20 minutes as his handlers looked on in dismay.

A skilled person can nose around any situation. It's the role of security to minimize the ability to do that.

It's never occurred to me to penetrate a state dinner at the White House, where I've been several times with appropriate clearance during the Bill Clinton days. I've been to a great many snazzy events, and my observation is that they generally do not live up to their billing, though of course it's always nice to be there. Except when it's a bore.

But if I lived on the East Coast rather than the West Coast, and cared about not being invited to the first state dinner of the Obama era, I see now that I've been missing out.

Evidently all you need is a very nice suit, a pretty blonde, and a bit of attitude. None of which are all that hard to pull off.

So, how could this go very badly for America?

Let's count the ways.

Death threats are mounting against Obama and liberal Democrats. Watch Fox News commentator Glenn Beck "role play" an assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

One could deploy a biological weapon such as anthrax or a radiological weapon. Yet, the reality is that one would not have to be able to do any of that to assassinate President Obama. A fairly pudgy far right blogger, or a benighted admirer of Al Qaeda, would still be able to pull that off.

All that is needed is to get within a few feet of the president.

And it does not require a gun.

Frankly, even the yutz who accompanied the blonde in crashing Obama's first state dinner could have wreaked havoc. We see pix of the couple with Biden and Emanuel. Their deaths would have been disrupting enough.

Now, the White House says that there was no danger for the president because everyone went through a magnetometer.

That's actually rather amusing.

You don't need a gun to kill the president. You don't even need a fork or a knife -- and those were available on every table at that state dinner -- to pull off an assassination. All you need is a few feet of access and a pair of strong and knowledgeable hands.

Now, I don't want to unnecessarily alarm people. But this president has done any number of things to seriously piss off a great many folks.

From the international far left, in the form of Islamic jihadists who have designs on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, to the domestic far right, which feverishly imagines that Obama isn't really an American at all, but is instead a fraud who owes his election to the manipulation of ACORN and answers to radical Islam. It's all nonsense, but it's dangerous nonsense.

The couple who crashed a White House dinner shouldn't need legal help, an attorney who knows them said Thursday, as the Secret Service remained quiet publicly about the incredible security breach.

I worry about Obama. The far right in this country -- which increasingly dominates the Republican Party (over 40% believe that Obama isn't really an American, and that the relatively powerless ACORN, somehow, bizarrely, stole the election for him) -- is bent on painting him as a "Manchurian Candidate" other.

The jihadist far left -- or is it really far right? -- is coming to realize that Obama is their worst nightmare. He is America's first black president, with an unusual name and an obvious affinity for the "other." Since he is the "other."

As Rachel Maddow pointed out a few months ago, when she merely replayed an assassination fantasy of an increasingly famous broadcaster, the notion of violence and even assassination is being played up in our political "discourse."

Both extremes -- the Glenn Becks and the Osama bin Ladens -- want this president gone. Both extremes are, whether they acknowledge it or not, setting the stage to rationalize an assassination.

If I were in the White House, given the overall situation and the extraordinary security lapses of this first state dinner, I would be sending some folks to guard snow plows in Antarctica this weekend. The snow plows that aren't being used in vain to try to stop ice shelves from breaking off into the ocean, that is. The stakes are simply too high to be nice about this.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Andy Borowitz: Pardoned White House Turkey Slays Nine

2009-11-26T15:34:41Z

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - In a potentially embarrassing situation for the Obama White House, a turkey pardoned by President Obama earlier this week went on a three-state killing spree on Thanksgiving Day, killing nine.

While authorities were still piecing together the motivation behind the recidivist fowl's homicidal rampage, a chorus of Republican critics complained that pardoning the feathered killer was symptomatic of the Obama administration's misguided policies.

"First they close down Guantanamo, then they let killer turkeys run free," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). "Next thing you know they'll put this turkey on trial in New York."

Elsewhere, a person believed to be a party-crasher who attended this week's state dinner and acted inappropriately turned out to be Vice President Joe Biden. More here.

Read more HuffPost Thanksgiving coverage and commentary

Tareq And Michaele Salahi: White House Party Crashers Walk Into State Dinner, Put Arm Around Joe Biden (VIDEO)

2009-11-25T21:00:59Z

Tareq and Michaele Salahi, aspiring members of the cast of a reality show called "The Real Housewives of DC," crashed Tuesday's state dinner at the White House. Facebook photos of the couple posing with Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel indicate that the couple had up-close access to some of Washington's elite, without actually being on the guest list. The couple maintains they were invited and a lawyer speaking for them says they have nothing to worry about.

WATCH:

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

More from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Crashing a state dinner at the White House apparently takes a security breakdown as well as some kind of nerve.

The Secret Service is looking into its own security procedures after determining that a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, managed to slip into Tuesday night's state dinner at the White House even though they were not on the guest list, agency spokesman Ed Donovan said.

President Barack Obama was never in any danger because the party crashers went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Donovan said.

Donovan confirmed the identities of the couple. The Washington Post, which first reported on their evening out, said the Salahis were well-known in the Virginia horse-country set.

The Secret Service learned about the security breach Wednesday after a media inquiry prompted by the Salahis' online boasts about having attended the private event, Donovan said.

One of the many photos from the dinner posted on Michaele Salahi's Facebook page shows the couple with a smiling Vice President Joe Biden. In other photos, they appear alone or together with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, CBS News anchor Katie Couric, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and three Marines in their dress blues.

Donovan would not comment on whether the couple had been contacted by the Secret Service, how long they were on the White House grounds or other details of the investigation.

The agency's Office of Professional Responsibility was reviewing what occurred. An initial finding indicated that a checkpoint did not follow proper procedures to ensure the two were on the guest list, Donovan said.

"It's important to note that they went through all the security screenings - the magnetometer screening - just like all the other guests did," Donovan said. And, he added, Obama and others under Secret Service protection had their usual security details with them at the dinner.

Andy Ostroy: Is Obama About to Make a Huge Mistake Over Afghanistan Troop Surge?

2009-11-25T18:38:54Z

President Obama announced this week that he'll be unveiling his war strategy for Afghanistan next Tuesday and in particular his decision on the September request made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal for an additional 40,000 troops. White House sources report that Obama will authorize just 30,000 which, if true, may be a huge political miscalculation.

Any additional troop authorization under the requested 40,000 is going to create a feeding-frenzy of Republicans rhetoric accusing the president of failing to listen to the generals; for being weak militarily; and for placating liberals. At a time when Obama's popularity is waning and he's facing uphill battles domestically on health care and the economy, the last thing he and Democrats need is to have the GOP attacking the administration on the war. So the obvious question is, if Obama's gonna up the ante to 30,000 troops, why not just give the general the 40,000 he asked for, albeit it with stringent progress demands, measurable benchmarks and realistic timetables for "mission accomplished" and a successful exit? In this explosively charged political climate, why feed right into the duplicitous hands of the "Obama doesn't support the troops" crowd?

Also, sending additionally troops--any additional amount--poses a huge political risk for the president among his supporters as well. A Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama sounding the anti-war alarm while escalating the operation sends a very mixed, confusing message to those who voted for him and expected a troop draw-down rather than a build-up.

To be sure, the 'correct amount' of additional troops needed for the Afghanistan "surge" is an absolutely arbitrary number, with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gen. McChrystal and countless others in disagreement over how many should be sent to complete the mission, whatever that is. So, why not defer to the leading commander in the region and give him what he sees in his McChrystal-ball rather than over-analyze the situation (as Obama's perhaps done for the past two months...only to come up with essentially the same conclusion), picking another number out of thin air which may or may not be the right one, and which allows your enemies to bash the crap out of you? Wouldn't it be more pragmatic and politically expedient to give the general the benefit of the doubt and shut down the engine of the right-wing attack-machine in the process? It just seems like Obama's regrettably setting the propaganda table for his ravenous GOP dinner guests.

Now on the other hand, instead of trying to play the "let's try to make everybody happy and ultimately make no one happy" game again, Obama could do what many believe he truly wants to, and what voters elected him to do: end the war, period. But this would mean acting on his true convictions. Now that would be novel, wouldn't it?

Les Leopold: Stop Socialism for the Rich: Nationalize Wall Street

2009-11-25T07:36:39Z

Joe Biden's father had it right: "It's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor." How did we get here?

More than thirty years ago we embarked on a grand deregulatory experiment. The financial sector was unleashed from New Deal-era controls. We were told this would lead to great prosperity and that free free-markets would police themselves.

The experiment failed.

Instead, the big banks constructed the wildest casino in history, gambled with other peoples' money, walked off with fabulous riches, and pawned the losses on us. Not exactly Adam Smith's definition of capitalism.

The nineteen largest banks (which represent more than sixty percent of our banking system) wrecked our economy. They still are wrecking it. During the worst financial crash since 1929, many of them are recording record profits. With no sense of shame or even irony, they soon will dole out record bonuses while the BLS jobless rate (U6) hits 17.5 percent (the highest since the 1930s), and while 49 million Americans are skipping meals during this holiday season.

Wall Street created a series of (barely) lawful Ponzi schemes that stacked bets upon bets with no real assets in sight. Profits ran wild as phony assets inflated in value. The too-complex-to-understand financial innovations turned out to be toxic. When they burst, the real economy, the one most of us work and live in, was crushed. (See "Executives Kept Wealth as Firms Failed," New York Times )

Our elite banks still are not lending to job-creating businesses even after taking taxpayer bailouts valued somewhere between $1 trillion to $13 trillion in cash, loans, liquidity programs and asset guarantees. As Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted, the largest banks are causing unemployment to rise by not lending out the capital we provided. We've had jobless recoveries before, but this our first jobloss recovery.

Instead, the largest financial institutions are playing the markets with our bailout funds and liquidity programs. They are gambling yet again by marketing high risk, high-fee securities. They also have a new toy: high speed trading. Each time, you or I buy or sell a stock, a big bank predator computer system is going to come in a nanosecond before our trade is completed to get a better price -- for the bank, not us. This creates zero economic value. It just transfers money from us to them in exchange for ... nothing.

Solutions?

When writing The Looting of America last fall I had offered a series of plausible reforms that I knew Wall Street would detest. But the crisis was so severe that for a moment it looked as if Congress and the administration would do the obvious: Install a sector-wide wage cap on financial salaries until unemployment went below 5 percent; Set a Tobin tax on speculative transactions; Place bans on derivatives that were too complicated to understand; End predatory mortgages; and Reinstate credit card interest rate ceilings to stop bank usury. I was naïve.

Instead, we have a Pay Czar who ignores the obscene bonus pools of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. Barney Frank refuses to ban complex, highly profitable, specialty derivatives. The Financial Consumer Protection Agency bill is being watered down, if not totally drowned, by bank lobbyists who are funded with our own TARP dollars. And the White House no longer even jaw-bones Wall Street's excesses. "Change we can believe in" has turned into "All retreat, All surrender."

Former Fed chief Paul Volker, however, won't quit. He is calling for the breakup of institutions that are too big to fail. Even Alan Greenspan agrees. While it would be enormously satisfying to bust up the big boys, it's not a panacea. As long as gambling is the bankers' way of life, a hundred smaller banks will continue the game as vigorously as nineteen large ones. As long as you can make more money by gambling than you can from loaning money to jobs-creating businesses, the net results will be the same.

Also smaller banks won't change the financial distortions of our economy. The financial sector as a whole is much too large and siphons off too much of our wealth, even when its bubbles aren't bursting. The entire sector is too big to fail and too big for the rest of us to succeed.

Decades ago, economists John Maynard Keynes and Hyman Minsky worried that large-scale private sector banking was inherently unstable -- that it would return to speculative activities as soon as the threat of collapse had passed. They wondered whether capitalism would have far fewer crises if the largest financial institutions were permanently nationalized.

They're winning me over. I no longer believe we can regulate our way out of this mess. I keep wondering how $100,000 a year civil servants are going to keep up with a $100 million dollar a year bankers, It's not going to happen. The bankers will use their army of financial engineers to outmaneuver the public regulators. Any regulator who can keep up with them will be sorely tempted to reach for the gold and jump ship. And this assumes that the regulations are tight, which they won't be because of the power and wealth of the bank lobby.

Instead, we should give strong consideration to nationalizing the nineteen largest banks in order to run them like public utilities. They could be modeled after non-profit credit unions and the few remaining state and regional banks. After nationalization, we also should consider placing banking employees into the civil service system in order to end the ridiculous wage distortions: Wall Street speculators should not earn one hundred times more than neurosurgeons.

Stable credit unions and regional banks could do an excellent job of moving savings to investment. It's painstaking, boring work and it will never produce super-profits. We don't need high stakes gambling. We don't need usurious credit card scams. We don't need subprime securitization and the stacks of bets upon them. We don't need high speed speculative trading activity that is just another form of outright cheating. And certainly, we don't need sky-high salaries for the croupiers.

(If you're worried that Wall Street would go in the red like the Post Office or Amtrak, do the math: It would take about a millennium of their red ink to add up to the trillions lost through the current banking crisis.)

Isn't this socialism? We've already established socialism for Wall Street's wealthy. We've allowed them to profit wildly from their fantasy finance bubble. We bailed them out when it burst. And after we emptied the treasury for their rescue, they are profiting wildly again. Is that capitalism?

We have to put our people to work. It's not going to happen through our Rube Goldberg regulatory contraptions now ricocheting through Congress. If we want to avoid a long, dark decade of joblessness, hunger and despair, we will need a renewed dialogue about what banks really are for, and how we get them to function for the pubic good.

Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It, Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.
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Hillary Clinton Vice President Rumors Flare Up Again

2009-11-24T16:10:52Z

Lest you think that these days before the Thanksgiving holiday are just a series of interminably slow turns at the news teat, here's Paul Bedard with some "Washington Whispers" that are TOTAL GAMECHANGERS:

The hot rumor in Washington: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could replace Vice President Joe Biden on the 2012 Obama re-election ticket. It would be a reward for her work at State and ready her for a 2016 run, as some strategists think Biden would be too old then to run for president.

Oooh, yes! So HOT, those rumors are! And they're almost as hot as they were about fourteen months ago!

Back then, Hillary was going to come on board as Veep in an awesome "October Surprise," because it was never more clear at that point that Joe Biden was going to get straight up decimated by the awesome debating skills of Sarah Palin, making John McCain's sweep of the entire electoral college all but certain. And now, look: health care reform is not going absolutely perfectly, so it's time to reshuffle the 2012 ticket!

Let's spend all day Sunday, talking about this as if it were actually happening.

Another hot rumor for you: On the Friday after Thanksgiving, people will be making delicious turkey-and-gravy sandwiches! You can, too, with the same microwave that reheated this rumor from September 2008!

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Joe Biden's Security Detail In Car Crash In New York (VIDEO)

2009-11-17T19:29:28Z

The advanced security detail for Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a car crash in New York today.

According to NBC New York, three advance NYPD vehicles "were moving down 49th Street near 10th Avenue when they slammed into the back of a livery cab."

Reports vary on whether Biden was in the motorcade at the time, with the New York Post claiming he was and NBC New York reporting that he was not.

Reached for comment, an NYPD detective said that three people were injured in the collision.

This is the third car accident involving Biden's motorcade or security detail in less than a week. On November 11th, a pedestrian was struck and killed by two Secret Service employees in Temple Hills, MD. In another incident yesterday, a sheriff's deputy was hit by a car while escorting Biden's motorcade in New Mexico.

In 1972 Biden's wife Neilia and 13-month-old daughter Naomi were killed in a tragic car accident.

Biden is in town for an appearance on The Daily Show.

WATCH:

Biden Serves Lunch To Homeless Men In D.C.

2009-11-13T13:47:24Z

Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise stop at the Father McKenna Center of St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. today to serve lunch to the homeless.

About 80 men watched the vice president don gloves and an apron to serve fish sticks in the nation's capital, which is home to approximately 18,000 homeless people.

Biden said he wanted to serve to remind himself of the grim reality that many D.C. residents face. According to The Washington Post, when Biden left the church, it took his motorcade less than five minutes to bring him back to the White House. St. Aloysius church is about half a mile north of the White House, and less than a block west of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

From The Washington Post:

"I do this at home," Biden said while lifting a piece of crust-covered fish with tongs and placing it on the plate of a man who shuffled by, eyes down, not recognizing his server. "I wanted to do this. I asked where I could do this without a lot of fanfare and they told me I could do it here."

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Jackson Williams: Bush Oil Buddies Divvy Up Iraqi Oil, Now Joined By "Liberal Scion" Peter Galbraith

2009-11-13T10:48:15Z

The ongoing saga of the Iraqi oil patch pie adds a new chapter, courtesy of the Thursday New York Times, and its above-the-fold front pager, "American Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits."

In today's installment, we learn that Peter Galbraith, former ambassador, foreign policy expert to Joe Biden and John Kerry, and son of the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith, is in line to reap $100 million dollars -- maybe more -- from contracts between a Norwegian oil company and the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. As an advisor to DNO, Galbraith and a partner received a 10% stake in a large Kurdish oil field back in 2004.

What's more, Galbraith has long championed the idea of partitioning Iraq, presumably into three regions that roughly encompass the country's three stakeholder groups (Shiite, Sunni and Kurd).

Why does this matter?

For one thing, the American-created central government in Baghdad has long insisted that it has sole constitutional authority over all of Iraq's oil. For another, giving the central government time to devise an equitable oil agreement between the stakeholders was the main goal President Bush touted when he announced "the surge" in January 2007.

Later that same year, in September, Hunt Oil of Dallas announced an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of the Kurdistan region. At the time, Bush briefly feigned concern:

"I knew nothing about the deal. I need to know exactly how it happened. To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously I'm - if it undermines that, I'm concerned."

Nine months later, in June 2008, Ray Hunt himself crowed about it at a dinner in his honor. D Magazine's online blog "Front Burner," in a piece titled "Oilman Hunt Sees A 'Soft Partition' For Iraq," quoted the longtime Bush crony parroting the Galbraith line:

"I think that, in the end, you'll end up with a soft partition of Iraq, a very decentralized government, with authority granted to three provinces. The Kurds I think will end up being an example...American democracy is not one-size-fits-all, but, as an example of what freedom can do, it's remarkable that this can happen."

Freedom's just another word for "I'm gettin' mine, boys!" Galbraith apparently figured that out years earlier.

Remarkably, the latest story in the Times states that "Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith's thinking but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Mr. Galbraith's oil dealings in Iraq, aides to both politicians say." Come again?

Vice President Biden may not favor partition now (he's not in charge of foreign policy), yet he certainly advocated it for years. In fact, he co-wrote a 2006 op-ed promoting it -- in the Times, no less! -- and often hyped it as one of his great ideas on cable chat shows. Partition may or may not be a great idea. Still, how does the germane fact of Joe's historic support not make it into the paper's story today?

Alan Greenspan noted in his 2007 memoir The Age of Turbulence, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Since I've previously blogged about this at Huffington Post, I'll just say it again:

Desert Storm in 1990 was also about oil, but Bush the Elder tacitly signaled that the motivation was to protect Kuwait's oil fields, which is why much of the world (including Arab neighbors) approved of the limited military action. "No-fly" zones over Iraq, continued by Bill Clinton for eight years, ultimately turned Baghdad's Bully into the mother of all empty suits.

Ah, but the son also rises.

Immediately after 9/11, Bush the Lesser held a megaphone at Ground Zero, promising that "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon." That should have meant al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, but it morphed, at least publicly, into Saddam's mythical mushroom clouds and WMDs. Then it became freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny, and finally it arrived at the fantastical notion of remaking the Middle East, at all cost and with our blood.

Remaking it for whom, exactly? Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon-Mobil, our Chevron shining bright?

Oliver Willis: Liberal Elitism? No. Some People Are, Sadly, Stupid

2009-11-12T20:07:20Z

Mike Elk takes "liberal elitism" to task for not taking the Tea Party people seriously, and that that will lead to the election of Sarah Palin and other such ilk.

To quote our vice president, malarkey.

While I have long argued that there is too much elitism on the left for my tastes, there's a wide gulf between holding your nose in the air for no good reason and dumbing yourself down in order to appeal to the lowest common idiotic denominator. Such is the case with the Tea Party group and their leaders like Palin.

Far from the liberals in the '70s who were clearly not responsive enough to the middle class, leading to the rise of Nixon and resentment politics, today's left has gone to great lengths to be a big tent. So much so that some of our biggest fault lines are internal and don't involve the Republicans at all. But far from the pre-Clinton great society types, today's liberals understand that without blue collar people on our side we don't advance as a movement.

The problem is that the vast majority of the issues brought up by the tea party types and Palin are idiotic. These aren't people with the traditional lower-middle class concerns of Americans (which is my family background) but instead these are people who largely believe the conspiracy du jour, whether that involves secret armies, the president's "true" nationality, or Nancy Pelosi's "death panels" that are set up to pull the plug on Grandma.

While the concerns of many white, middle-class people are worthy causes and should be addressed by liberals (and are), it is not elitism to treat this roving band of conspiracy nuts for the cretins they are or associate with. This would be akin to President Johnson in 1964 undertaking a federal committee to study the mind control powers of fluoridated water. That would be asinine.

Liberals have in the past allowed the ivory tower set to exert too much control over the Democratic party. That resulted in a narrow focus and deserved electoral losses. But the idea that the tea party movement represents any sort of rational discourse deserving of recognition and outreach is absurd. These are, by and large, the same band of stupid people we have always had in this country, whether they were in favor of submission to the British empire, secession from the union, alliance with Hitler, or decrying the president a "half breed Muslim terrorist", we owe them no recognition or inclusion in the important discussion about the direction of American society.

Read more from Oliver Willis at OliverWillis.com.

Secret Service Motorcade Strikes, Kills Pedestrian

2009-11-11T16:52:10Z

According to news reports, two cars that normally make up Vice President Biden's motorcade were involved in a fatal accident early Wednesday morning.

The Washington Post traffic report states that the incident happened at 3:07 a.m, in Temple Hills, Md., at the intersection of Suitland Parkway and Naylor Road. (Though The Hill places the time of the crash at 2:27 a.m.). A pedestrian was struck by two Secret Service employees driving vehicles that were designated for Biden's use. Biden was not in either vehicle at the time of the crash. The victim was rushed to the hospital but declared dead Wednesday morning. The victim's name has not yet been released, and the incident is still under investigation. Read more details here.

Biden Blasts "Cowboys on Wall Street"

2009-11-09T13:56:24Z

Vice President Joe Biden blasted the "cowboys on Wall Street" Monday, squarely placing blame on the nation's financial center for "an economy built on a bubble."

Biden's remarks came during a campaign event in Detroit for a pair of Michigan Democrats in Congress, as reported by Dawson Bell of the Detroit Free Press.

Discussing the economy, Biden said it was easy to forget "just how horrible things were back in January." But now, as a largely jobless recovery begins to take shape, Biden told the crowd that the administration's measure of success will be whether the nation's middle class emerges from the recession in better shape.

It's the second time this month Biden has referred to the "cowboys" on Wall Street.

During a Nov. 2 campaign event for then-Congressional candidate Bill Owens, Biden said:

Ladies and gentlemen, derivatives, gambling with your money, taking risks that exceed anything reasonable, leveraging things 30 to 1 is still permissible if we do not and if you wondered whether or not they'd go back to their same old ways, I just ask you to pick up the paper. What will -- what will Bill's opponent do about that? I know what he'll do; support reasonable, rational means by which we can get banks starting lending money again. We can make sure that people have a fighting chance and that we do not leave our future in the hands of a bunch of gamblers and cowboys on Wall Street.

Owens, a Democrat, won the race to represent New York's 23rd Congressional District. Meanwhile, various reform proposals for the financial services industry are making their way through Congress.

Ali A. Rizvi: Is the United States Gearing Up to Go Into Pakistan?

2009-11-07T11:22:15Z

In 2007, Barack Obama attracted controversy during his campaign by declaring that if elected, he would be willing to go into Pakistan if there is "actionable intelligence about high-value targets" in the country, and if the Pakistani government "won't act" against them.

During her three-day visit to Pakistan this week, Hillary Clinton seemed to indicate that those two criteria may now have been fulfilled.

On actionable intelligence about high-value targets, Clinton seemed confident that Al Qaeda's leadership is present in Pakistan: "Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002 ... it is just a fact that Al Qaeda had sought refuge in Pakistan after the US and our allies went after them because of the attack on 9/11 ... Our best information is that Al Qaeda leadership is somewhere in Pakistan."

On unwillingness to act, she suggested that Pakistani officials know where these terrorists are, but are hesitant to go after them: "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."

Even while commending Pakistan's military efforts in Swat and South Waziristan, she said that it was "not sufficient."

Meanwhile, President Obama has been "dithering" (as Dick Cheney put it) on a decision about how many more troops to send to Afghanistan, if any.

He may be listening closely to his vice president. Newsweek's recent cover story on Joe Biden started off highlighting the veep's concerns about resources and strategy in the region: "So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?"

The question is a good one, and Biden's observations are shared by others, notably National Security Adviser Retd. Gen. James Jones, who said of Afghanistan earlier this month: "The Al Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

On Friday, the White House stood behind Clinton's blunt comments, calling them "completely appropriate."

While it may be too early to tell whether Obama will follow through on his 2007 campaign pledge, it does seem like his administration is setting the stage.

Charles Butler: Happy Election Day, Mr. President

2009-11-05T12:17:15Z

November 2, 2009

Here we are one year since the first Black American President was elected to office. I must be honest with you all and proclaim it was a relief not to have Sarah Palin a heartbeat from the presidency.

The Republican ticket of McCain/Palin left a lot to be desired for many Americans. So, it became the adage "Which ticket is the least worst of a two poor choices." We have found ourselves in this position more often than not in the last 40 years. The American people spoke by voting in Barack Hussein Obama and "Poor Joe" Biden.

After I got over the initial shock, I immediately sensed the relief of not having to defend Republican policies and remarks. The focus was on the new team of "Yes We Can" and knowing what I know about politics, I knew they couldn't achieved their promises in the best economic and political climate. However, I hoped for the best and wished them well, for the sake of the country.

My wife and I attended the Presidential Inauguration, the Obama Lovefest, and enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones on a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. We saw many people that we know walk onto the swearing-in platform behind President-elect Obama. I could not help but think as I was standing there on the Mall with 3 million other people, what is Obama really going to accomplish in office. Knowing that his previous political accomplishments were light by any measure, I was concerned for the country. I thought to myself, will these people be disappointed again by a charismatic politician making big promises: "If the CEO can be wealthy, why can't the janitor, and if I am elected, I will give the janitor and secretary a path to that wealth." The visions of the Senator Obama jumping up on stages and rallying the people around the country with popularist phases played over and over in my mind. I thought how is the President of the United States going to regulate the pay of a CEO of a private corporation? What would give him that authority?

Then the fun began with the selection of the first cabinet members. I can only say that the President promised to find the best qualified people to serve in his administration. Going in I surmised that Black people would see their plight change if we got the slots of Commerce, Education, Attorney General, or Labor at the very least. Many folks were shocked and disappointed that he could only find one Black American that fit those qualifications, Eric Holder the Attorney General. When questioned about the appointment of SECDOE Arnie Duncan, Mr. Obama replied he is the best basketball player in the cabinet. Let's just ignore the fact he ran one of the worst school systems in the country during his tenure. Only 45 students died and 398 were wounded for the school year of 2008/2009. The President of hope and change found plenty of Hispanics, and Asians to fill key roles in the administration. The pay-off for 96% Black voter support.

The Incoming President promised "Hope and Change" for all Americans and an unparalleled level of transparency. Well, the facts are the White House has been very secretive about visitors and policies. Mr. Obama promised to post bills online before he signed them to get Americans comments. Not one as been posted before he signed it into law.

I think President Obama's lack of experience in executive decision making is beginning to show. As the CEO of the country, he has to make decisions that effect a great number of people. He has waffled on Afghanistan troop build up, closing Gitmo, and a host of other issues. The experts are saying the Stimulus monies were a bust and the economic recovery is jobless, instead of the thousands of jobs the President predicted.

I think last year's vote proved people voted against Bush, and not for Obama. Today's votes are about the economy and jobs in the respective areas, not Obama policies. However, people are angry and frustrated over the tax hikes, health care, troops in the war, and the jobless economy recovery.

I have never heard a President and his people lay blame the previous administration so frequently. One of President Obama's supporters said it best. Bill Maher said, "I never thought I would long for the days of George W. Bush and decisions." Please stop campaigning and start governing, Mr. President.

Mr. President, it is your country to run now, and you need to stop blaming Bush and Cheney and make some decisions. You can not make everyone happy!

Peace, Charles

Obama Faces Revolt From Generals Over Strategy In Afghanistan

2009-11-04T14:52:23Z

In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war -- go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire -- or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.

Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers -- including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of U.S. Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 -- could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party...

Glynnis MacNicol: A Year of Obama: Top Ten Highs and Lows of the Last Twelve Months

2009-11-03T13:36:31Z

A year ago tomorrow the nation went to polls and elected Barack Hussein Obama the 44th President of the United States. It was a joyful occasion, celebrated the world over, and variously compared to New Years Eve, the Yankees winning the World Series, the opposite of 9/11, and the proper beginning of the 21st Century.

The national political mood of Election Day 2009 would likely not be recognizable to the Obama-happy nation of 12 months ago. What a difference, etc. And yet, it's hard to believe it's only been 12 months! And a mere nine-and-a-half months of actual presidency. And truly it is only a slight exaggeration to say that in the interim it's been all Obama, all the time. With that in mind let's take a look back at the Barack Obama highlights (and some lowlights) of the last year.

Election Night - November 4, 2008

Oh that happy day. Seriously, there were a lot of happy people that day and it had very little to do with partisan politics. It was next to impossible not to be moved when President-elect Barack Obama took the stage with his family at Grant Park in Chicago, the first African American to be elected President.

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William Bradley: Afghanistan, Again: The Thicket Obama's Not Getting Out Of

2009-10-29T14:23:45Z

President Barack Obama is getting ready to reveal his latest strategy for Afghanistan, perhaps after the election a week from Friday. He appears to be preparing to split the difference. Perhaps he should be preparing to split the territory.

Afghanistan has a government, of a sort, but it doesn't really have a nation. It won't have a nation unless we build it. And there is hardly a guarantee that, as the saying goes, if we build it, they will come.

President Barack Obama spent early Thursday morning publicly honoring the return of fallen soldiers. Obama attended the return of 18 soldiers killed this week in Afghanistan at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. He is the first president to do this since 9/11.

In any event, we can't afford to build a nation in Afghanistan. (Not that America has ever been good at nation-building since the Marshall Plan, which involved rebuilding educated modern societies with industrial know-how in the aftermath of devastating them in World War II.) And we don't need to build a nation in Afghanistan. We have one reasonable goal there: To prevent it from again becoming a base for jihadists, as it was before 9/11. Everything else, no matter how seemingly noble it may or may not be, is a luxury. And today, it's luxury that we can't afford -- geopolitically, financially, militarily. America can't play crusader rabbit, rushing about to write all the world's wrongs.

Obama meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday to discuss Afghanistan.

The newest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is evidently moving to a compromise between two schools of thought on Afghanistan: the maximalist approach advocated by the new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal; and the minimalist approach advocated by Vice President Joe Biden. One would have 40,000 additional troops go there, in a counter-insurgency strategy of building up Afghanistan. The other would eschew escalation, instead focusing on counter-terrorist operations using surveillance, intelligence, high-tech weaponry, and special operations troops to disrupt potential new bases. Which presently, as it happens, do not exist.

Obama flew very early this morning on Marine One to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a solemn movement.

Obama looks likely to split the difference. There is talk of four new combat brigades for Afghanistan. That's 14,000 troops. With support personnel, we get to the middle point between McChrystal and Biden.

As it happens, a new poll shows that this approach may fly with voters. But only barely. And perhaps only for now.

With President Obama's ratings holding steady, a brand new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is very revealing with regard to views on Afghanistan, national health care reform, and hyperpartisan fighting and gridlock in Washington. It shows that this is a country that is rather confused and contradictory, and decidedly disappointed, with regard to its politics.

A plurality of Americans now backs a troop increase, and a strong majority supports waiting on a decision until after the country conducts its presidential runoff election next month.

Also, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moves forward crafting a Senate health care bill that contains a public option -- with a state "opt out" -- the survey shows that support for a government-run insurance plan is at its highest level since the debate began and opposition is at its lowest level.

Perhaps most revealing, the poll highlights the public's disgust at Washington, with the number trusting government at its lowest level in 12 years and with nearly half of Americans favoring the creation of a new political party.

Afghan police said an attack yesterday by gunmen on a United Nations house in Kabul left 12 dead. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the assault was aimed at the upcoming presidential election on November 7th.

Let's take those one at a time. On Afghanistan, the message is decidedly mixed. Decidedly. While there is support for a troop increase -- which is a sharp reversal since last month -- it's at a much lower level than that advocated by General McChrystal. Think 10,000, not 40,000. And nearly as many want to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan right now.

On national health care, the public option is favored by a near majority. But most doubt the overall plan, not that they understand it. Still, most want to pass an Obama health care plan, while worrying at the same time that it might go too far. Okay then.

What is especially striking is the public disgust with Washington. (It sounds like Californians' disgust with their Capitol.) A big majority says there's too much partisan infighting. Republicans get the rap more than Democrats, but a strong plurality blames both parties. And nearly half want a new, independent party.

But asked to choose between Republicans and Democrats, the not so Grand Old Party gets the decidedly shorter end of the stick. Only 25% have a favorable view of the Republican Party, while 42% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

That ties the Republicans' all-time low. So Obama can sustain some more criticism from Republicans, considering the source.

Eight American troops were killed on Tuesday in Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the war.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, officials are scrambling to mount a November 7th run-off election for president between President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Half the country's local elections officials have been fired in the wake of findings of massive fraud in what was claimed at first to be a landslide win for Karzai. The Taliban say they will disrupt the election. Abdullah says he won't go into coalition with Karzai if Karzai "wins" again.

Perhaps he's looking down the road. Abdullah was the spokesman for the Northern Alliance, the group that was most effective in fighting both the Soviets and the Taliban. (Abdullah, unlike Karzai, who raised money outside Afghanistan during the fighting, fought in both those wars.) The leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists two days before 9/11. (Their camera exploded during the interview.) This was no coincidence. Osama bin Laden banked big credits with his hosts the Taliban, which feared Massoud and would now refuse to serve bin Laden up to the Americans. And both the Taliban and Al Qaeda eliminated a strong ally for America in any retaliation for 9/11.

The Taliban are strong in the south, which is also Karzai's political base, but not in the north, which is Abdullah's base and the place in which the Northern Alliance flourished. Perhaps Abdullah doesn't want to be tarnished by association with Karzai, George W. Bush's handpicked choice inherited by Obama, a figure further compromised by a brother widely linked to the drug trade and reported by the New York Times to have been on the CIA payroll since 2001.

Three helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans in Afghanistan on Monday. It was one of the deadliest days of the war for U.S. troops. Two of the helicopters collided. In the other incident, the helo was engaging Taliban fighters.

And perhaps Abdullah sees that America is very unlikely to sustain a long-term, scaled-up presence in the south. The north is much more capable of sustaining itself free of Taliban domination.

For now, however, Obama seems to be moving toward a less aggressive than McChrystal prefers yet still ongoing form of nation-building for Afghanistan as a whole. To the extent that Afghanistan can be said to be more than a failed state or, more accurately, a never-was state.

Or perhaps Obama's real aim is to buy more time, with a bid to get more European assistance through NATO in building up Afghan security forces while trying to strike a deal with elements of the Taliban. He may get more help, but probably with an exit plan in mind on the part of the Europeans.

That is, unless Tony Blair becomes the first president of the European Union and spins up more support.

We'll see soon enough what finally emerges from Obama's weeks of meetings and deliberation. I don't have a good feeling about it.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Obama Considers Smaller Afghanistan Troop Option

2009-10-28T21:42:27Z

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is considering sending large numbers of additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan next year but fewer than his war commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, prefers, U.S. officials said.

Such a narrowed military mission would escalate American forces to accomplish the commander's broadest goals, protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But the option's scaled-down troop numbers likely would cut back on McChrystal's ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as "McChrystal Light."

Robert Naiman: "Lessons in Disaster": If Obama Caves to the Pentagon, He's No Jack Kennedy

2009-10-27T12:18:51Z

President Obama knows better than to agree to General McChrystal's proposal for military escalation in Afghanistan. He read the book.

On October 7, the Wall Street Journal reported that top officials of the Obama Administration, including President Obama himself, had recently read Gordon Goldstein's book on the path to U.S. military escalation in Vietnam: Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam.

The Journal reported that, "For opponents of a major troop increase, led by Biden and Emanuel, "'Lessons in Disaster' ... encapsulates their concerns about accepting military advice unchallenged."

Indeed, a central theme of the book is President Kennedy's willingness, on the question of ground troops in Vietnam, to do what President Obama has not yet done regarding demands for military escalation in Afghanistan: stand up to the U.S. military and say no.

Journalist Seymour Hersh, a close student of the U.S. military since he broke the story of the My Lai massacre, says the U.S. army is "in a war against the White House - and they feel they have Obama boxed in." Hersh says the only way out is for Obama to stand up to the Pentagon. "He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon," Hersh said. If he doesn't, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency." The only way for the U.S. to extricate itself from the conflict, Hersh says, is to negotiate with the Taliban. "It's the only way out," he said. "I know that there's a lot of discussion in the White House about this now. But Obama is going to have to take charge, and there's no evidence he's going to do that."

There's a conventional wisdom now that Obama simply can't "take charge," because it's politically impossible. According to this view, McChrystal's request sets up the Republicans to blame Obama for "losing Afghanistan" if he doesn't agree to McChrystal's request (even though, as Fareed Zakaria notes in the Washington Post, over the past 18 months, troop levels in Afghanistan have almost tripled).

But Goldstein's book strongly argues that President Obama could say no to the U.S. military. The perceived threat to the U.S. from "international Communism" was at least as powerful a bogey in American politics in 1961 as the threat of international terrorism is today.

Goldstein notes (p. 30):

[I]n the fall of 1961, Kennedy's most senior advisers almost unanimously warned him that the odds were sharply against avoiding a catastrophic defeat in Vietnam unless the president approved the first increment of a ground combat force deployment that might ultimately reach six divisions, or more than 200,000 men.

Yet Kennedy rejected every proposal to send combat troops to Vietnam.

Kennedy also rejected U.S. military demands for U.S. military intervention in Laos (pp. 46-47) In April 1961, Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief of naval operations, argued "strongly and repeatedly" that without U.S. military intervention in Laos, "all Southeast Asia will be lost." The majority of Kennedy's advisers supported the deployment of combat troops to South Vietnam, Thailand, and government-controlled positions in Laos. If that failed to produce a cease-fire, Kennedy was advised to use tactical nuclear weapons against Laotian guerrillas. If China or North Vietnam intervened, those countries should be bombed and, if necessary, attacked with nuclear weapons.

Instead of taking any of this advice, Kennedy pressed for a diplomatic solution, bringing about a cease-fire and eventually an agreement for the neutralization of Laos.

Kennedy's willingness to stand up to military and civilian advisers who seemed to automatically advocate the most militarily aggressive U.S. response to any situation was informed by the debacle of the Bay of Pigs invasion, when Kennedy was badly burned by bad advice - not just advice that was bad in the sense of being wrong in its predictions, but advice that was deceitful - bad in the sense of "bad faith" and withholding key information. The same advisers who demanded U.S. military intervention in Laos had advised Kennedy to approve the Bay of Pigs operation - the invasion of Cuba by U.S.-supported Cuban exiles. Before the invasion, Kennedy's advisers talked up the great prospects for success. In approving it, Kennedy made clear that if it failed, he would not authorize direct U.S. military intervention to save it. When - predictably - the operation failed, Kennedy's advisers demanded direct U.S. military intervention to save it. In fact, the documentary record shows that the CIA knew the operation would fail without direct U.S. military intervention, but withheld this information from Kennedy, and that their plan all along was to box Kennedy into a situation where he would be compelled to involve U.S. forces. By Kennedy's own account, the CIA and the military didn't believe that a "new president" would stand up to them. (p.40)

When you read this history, you see Vice-President Biden's prediction that President Obama would be "tested" in a new light. Yes, President Obama is being tested - but not by foreign adversaries. President Obama is being tested by the Pentagon.

President Kennedy was no dove. Kennedy was willing to violate international law and Kennedy was willing to authorize the killing of people in foreign countries who had committed no crime against the people of the United States. What Kennedy was not willing to do was commit U.S. ground troops to an unwinnable war in Vietnam. And he wasn't willing to commit U.S. ground troops - as some of his advisers were - in the belief that protecting U.S. "credibility" meant that it would be better to fight and lose than not to fight. You don't have to be a dove to understand what President Kennedy understood: putting U.S. troops on the ground somewhere doesn't automatically make you more powerful. Indeed, it could make you less powerful, because, all other things being equal, a person with more options is more powerful than a person with fewer options. And if military escalation closes off opportunities for diplomatic and political solutions, it makes you less powerful.

Some people at the top of the Obama Administration clearly get this. Indeed, the Journal reported that, "Administration officials in the Biden camp fear they too could close off the path to a more peaceful resolution of the conflict if 40,000 more troops are sent."

This is the key danger in approving McChrystal's request. Of course, in the short run, sending more troops almost surely means that more U.S. troops will die and more Afghan civilians will die, and that would be bad enough. But the even greater danger is that it might make the eventual, inevitable political resolution of the conflict more difficult, thereby prolonging it and causing many more needless deaths.

National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy believed that after the U.S. escalated and "Americanized" the Vietnam war in 1965, a diplomatic solution was "not viable." Repeating this mistake - making a diplomatic resolution "not viable" - is the great danger in McChrystal's request. Bundy said later that Congress knew perfectly well what was at stake when President Johnson escalated U.S. involvement in 1965, and deliberately chose not to be involved. That observation is even more relevant today. No one in Congress can claim ignorance of a debate that has been aired in the media much more than the 1965 escalation decision was. If Congress isn't speaking up, it must be that they're not hearing enough from their constituents.

As former Marine captain Matthew Hoh recently wrote in his letter of resignation as a top U.S. official in Afghanistan,

"I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

Now there's a great American patriot. Do what he says.

Biden On Cheney Criticism: "Who Cares?"

2009-10-23T17:21:51Z

Asked about criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney, current VP Joe Biden had a simple response: "Who cares?"

Actually, he said, "Who cares what -- " and then stopped himself.

"Yeah, yeah, I can see the headline now," Biden said. "I'm getting better, guys. I'm getting a little better, you know what I mean?"

Cheney said in a speech Wednesday night at the Center for Security Policy that President Obama is "dithering" on Afghanistan "while America's armed forces are in danger." He claimed that "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries."

The vice president did elaborate on one of Cheney's arguments -- that the last administration left Obama with a review of Afghanistan.

"A whole lot has changed in the last year," he said. "Let's assume they left us a review that was absolutely correct. Is that review relevant and totally applicable to today in light of the changes that have taken place in the region, in Afghanistan itself? So I think that is sort of irrelevant. Not sort of -- I think it's irrelevant."

Biden's rebuttal was delivered from Eastern Europe, where he has been reassuring leaders that the reconfiguring of President Bush's missile defense system does not mean the U.S. is no longer committed to the region.

The White House responded forcefully to Cheney's claims on Thursday. "What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

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Biden Responds To Cheney's Afghan War Criticism: "Who Cares?"

2009-10-23T17:20:06Z

PRAGUE : Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a blunt response Friday to the latest broadsides from former Vice President Dick Cheney: "Who cares?"

Robert Naiman: NoEscalation.org: Can the Peace Movement Reach President Obama?

2009-10-22T10:21:54Z

If there were ever a time when the peace movement should be able to have an impact on U.S. foreign policy, that time should be now. If there were ever a time for extraordinary effort to achieve such an impact, that time is now.

The war in Afghanistan is in its ninth year. McChrystal's proposal could continue it for another ten years, at a likely cost of a trillion dollars, and many more lives of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians. The contradiction between domestic needs and endless war was never more apparent. Congress fights over whether we can "afford" to provide every American with quality health care, but every health care reform proposal on the table will likely cost less than McChrystal's endless war. A recent CNN poll says 6 in 10 Americans oppose sending more troops.

Democratic leaders in Congress are deeply skeptical: as far back as June, Rep. Murtha and Rep. Obey voted for Rep. McGovern's amendment demanding an exit strategy, and that was before the Afghan election fiasco, when international forces failed at their key objective of providing security, and before McChrystal demanded a 60% increase in U.S. forces, on top of the 50% increase approved earlier this year. Our troops are "exhausted," Murtha says.

Top administration officials share the skepticism. Vice-President Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and Afghan scholar Barnett Rubin, an advisor to Ambassador Holbrooke, have all been arguing against a troop increase: the political people on the grounds that the American people and Congress won't support it; Biden on the grounds that it would be a diversion from Pakistan; Rubin on the grounds that it would be counterproductive to reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Elite opinion is closely divided. This is a jump ball. It could go either way. And a decision by Nobel Laureate Obama to send 40,000 more U.S. troops is likely to severely constrain U.S. policy, abroad and at home, for many years.

Such a time calls for extraordinary efforts to mobilize public opinion to move policy.

National peace advocacy organizations, including Peace Action, Just Foreign Policy, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and Voters for Peace, are launching such an extraordinary effort. At the joint website noescalation.org, we're posting the phone numbers of every Congressional office, and what is known so far about where they stand on the proposal to send 40,000 more U.S. troops. We're asking Americans to call Congressional offices and search the media for information on where each Member of Congress stands. And we're asking for that information to be reported back to the website noescalation.org.

The more Members of Congress take a clear stand against military escalation, the more likely President Obama is to reject McChrystal's request. Some Members of Congress are saying, "We're waiting to see what the president decides." But that nonsense is an obvious dodge. The time to affect the president's decision is obviously before he makes it, not afterwards. Of course some Members of Congress are going to avoid taking a position if they can. Our job is to smoke them out.

Call now. The Norwegians are counting on you.

Who's The Best-Looking Biden Boy? (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-10-20T10:33:11Z

Vice President Joe Biden was a silver fox in the Senate, but he isn't the only Biden to catch our attention. Last week, as the veep's son Beau told GMA that he'd "absolutely" consider running for his father's Senate seat, we got a little lost in his trademark Biden Blues. And meet the rest of this genetically-blessed family: the vice president's brothers James and Frank, his sons Beau and Hunter and his grandson little Hunter. (The Biden women aren't too shabby either: see the leg-baring dress Jill Biden wore on Monday.) So who's the best-looking of the great-looking bunch? Take a look and remember to vote!

Who Is The Ultimate Game Changer In Style? VOTE NOW!

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