I lived in Maryland and Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. area, for nearly half of my lifetime, so being in such proximity to Delaware, I got an earful of misstatements on the part of Joe Biden, our next Vice President. Therefore, I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when Obama picked him to be his running mate. Although, interestingly, my parents seemed much more forgiving of Biden's inability to speak and actually thought it was a good pick. How can this be? Is this the same man we had fun listening to for 15 years? At any rate, the media seems to love him, not as much as Obama, but I digress. Why is this? Nonetheless, I am wondering how long it is going to take for the media to wake up to the fact that they've got Dan Quayle 2.0 as the new Vice President. I already highlighted some of Joe's crazy comments in another post, so I won't cover those, but I recently read a Fox News story, dated in October, that pointed out just how much of a pass the media was giving to Joe. Why am I having to quote a Fox News story on this one? Well, the story itself points at that nobody is bothering to do the research. In fact, I watched this debate and I immediately caught the discrepancy that is so prevalent in this story, and then I looked it up to be sure. Therefore, since this news article is correct about the Constitution, I'll give this writer some leeway on his veracity. So, what did Joe say during the Vice Presidential debate that is so outlandish? Here goes:
"Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.
And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.
The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous."
Okay, so how is it that a man who has served in the U.S. Senate as long as Joe Biden has, has absolutely no idea what the role of the Vice President is. First of all, the office of the Vice President is defined in Article 1 of the Constitution (the legislative branch), not article 2 (the executive branch). Hmm... Interesting, that he'd say it is in the executive branch and described article 1 as being the executive branch. Apparently he hasn't read the Constitutuion. (Oh wait, he probably hasn't). Second, the Constitution clearly does define the role of the Vice President (in the legislative branch portion) as: "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." What does it mean to be President of the Senate. Well, I guess for Biden that'll mean that he'll only show up if there is a danger of a tie vote, but for most Vice President's throughout our history, that meant that they were President of the Senate and that they presided over it, interpreted the rules of the body and enforced them and could only be overridden by a 60 vote count of the whole. That seems like a pretty involved (legislative) activity. Of course, he'll only get to vote in the event of a tie, but I don't think Joe will have to worry about that during his 4 years with the majority the Democrats enjoy in the Senate, so I ask, what will he do as Vice President. Nothing apparently considering his understanding of the job. In fact, who was right about the office of Vice President during the debate? That's right, Mrs. Palin. She said, "Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that's not only to preside over the Senate and [I] will take that position very seriously also. I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chooses to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are" which is a bit awkward, but basically says the Vice President presides over that Senate and works with its members on behalf of the President. Sounds so very constitutional, I guess maybe she's actually read it. Nonetheless, this was the most egregious, but nowhere near the only faux pas by Mr. Biden during the debate that went virtually overlooked by the media. Here's a list of a few others:
1. Will McCain's health care proposals raise taxes? Biden says that McCain’s proposal will cost people money. However, the Tax Foundation found that could easily be "roughly deficit-neutral over ten years." which is ironically exactly what Palin said during the debate.
2. Under an Obama Administration the middle class will "pay no more than they did under Ronald Reagan"? However, this statement assumes you decrease taxes from their existing levels, but Obama will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, so the tax rates will be similar to the higher rates under Clinton.
3. "we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country"? Oh my gosh. This statement is so outlandish that I heard it in the debate and thought, surely not, he must be mistaken. Well, one year’s worth of spending in Iraq equaled five in Afghanistan. So, either he was mistaken or he was lying or he just doesn't know. I know which one I think it is.
3. France and the U.S. "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon"? Okay, well now, this is a stupid statement on its face and really doesn't deserve comment, but for someone with "foreign policy experience" you'd think he'd know Hezbollah was of Syrian, not Lebanese origin, but nonetheless, the statement still doesn't make any sense.
4. Is it really “simply not true” that Obama said that he would meet with the leader of countries such as Iran without preconditions? No, in fact Obama said he would. He has tried to pussy foot around the issue talking about "preparation", but that is a nice way of saying he would meet with them around a square table but not a circular one and has nothing to do with preconditions of giving up nuclear aspirations or whatever the great issues are and so is an empty statement.
5. Obama warned against letting Hamas participate in Palestinian legislative elections in 2005? Uh, no, he didn't. Of course, if anyone can find a 2005 quote from before the election where he actually did, let me know and I'll change my stance on this one. Good luck in your futility, however.
6. “Iraqis have an $80 billion surplus”? You keep hearing this over and over. First of all, assuming oil prices had remained high, then they'd have had, maybe, a 50 billion dollar surplus by the end of this year. I don't know why nobody is calling this one out as the complete falsehood that it is. Oh wait, yes I do, because "oil companies" bad, "Democrats" good.
7. This one is amusing and was actually covered, a little. Biden tried to make himself out to be just one of the people and invited anyone to have a beer with him at "Katie's Restaurant" in Wilmington, Del. Unfortunately for him, that's gonna be difficult considering the restaurant hasn't been called that for about 15 years.
Now, of course then you can throw in the whole FDR getting on tv and talking to the people in 1929 thing when he wasn't even President and there wasn't any tv, but apparently that was marked up as an unintentional flub. Well, based on the above and on an earlier post of mine, it is a symptom of a man claiming intelligence who obviously is lacking in ability to use it. So, when will the media realize we have Dan Quayle 2.0? They probably already do, but they can't have him making their chosen son Obama look bad, so they'll probably rarely, if ever, point it out.
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