On Wednesday, Joe Lieberman published a piece on the opinion pages of WSJ which essentially accused the entirety of foreign policy positions held by the current Democratic Party of being essentially a stab in the back to the entirety of foreign policy positions of the Democratic Party of FDR, Truman, and JFK. Interestingly, LBJ wasn’t included in the litany of Democratic golden oldies. Joe may have succeeded in performing a lobotomy on himself, resulting in a weird sort of frontal stupidity, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still wily.

Today, Joe Biden, has a superb answer to Lieberman, also in the pages of the WSJ, one in which Biden touches all the right bases, not more, not less, and then heads confidently for home plate, leaving that other Joe in the dust.  Read more 

He claimed a pocket veto, while technically Bush vetoed the bill under the Constitution. In the president’s Memorandum of Disapproval, he gave one main reason: his objection to Section 1083 of the legislation.

Call me crazy (or just plain realistic), but I’m reluctant to take our dear president’s word as to his actual motive(s) for such a strange method of vetoing the bill.

There just might be more to it.  Read more 

[Welcome Online WSJ readers. I think you might want to be here.]

At this point, I’m pretty realistic about the strategy of the Sternly Worded Letter. But Joe Biden gets off a good one here, writing to Fred Fielding:

On December 10, 2007, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino stated that you issued a written directive to White House employees to preserve documents related to the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes. Ms. Perino did not provide a copy of the directive, however, and she was unable to answer questions as to its breadth and scope.

Please confirm that the directive to preserve documents applied to the Executive Office of the President, including the National Security Council, in addition to immediate White House staff. In light of the Office of the Vice President’s record of fatuous arguments that it is not subject to the authority of the President, please also confirm that the directive included the Office of the Vice President and that the Office of the Vice President intends to comply.

Indeed.  Read more 

Perhaps it’s hard for Hillary and Barack to get hold of their expensive Beltway consultants on a Friday afternoon. Or maybe the consultant’s scarfing a cocktail wienie, so they can’t speak clearly.

Regardless, check out this amazing WaPo chat:

San Francisco: Will you join Sen. Chris Dodd’s hold and proposed filibuster on any FISA bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecoms? Thanks for joining us for this chat today, Sen. Biden, and thanks for the leadership you provide the Democratic Party and America.

Sen. Joe Biden: Yes.

Amazing for the brevity, I mean. (Via McJoan Big Orange). Dunno who that was from SF, but I’d like to think it was FDL’s Teddy.

And before you say “Oh, Dodd and Biden aren’t top-tier candidates”:  Read more 

Oh wait, wasn’t that supposed to be the rap on Bill Clinton? George Stephanopoulos was supposed to be the true liberal believer, the progressive conscience of the administration, the last honest kid, or so he conjured himself in his book about his Clinton years.

The particular Sunday Gas Baggery which is emitted each week from ABC is almost worth imbibing to watch the spectacle of Lil’ George displaying his bad conscience. Oh, I know, he’s a journalist now. If only! Okay, maybe like Zelig, he is. Perhaps I’m being hard on the kid, but if anyone can supply me with evidence that George Stephanopoulos shows any sign of ever having believed deeply in anything beyond his own career advancement, about any aspect of politics, governance, or even journalism, I will be happy to reconsider.

Here’s the short version of this particular Sunday: Joe Biden was terrific, Richard Lugar, awful, pathetically so, Rep. Duncan Hunter was awful, but brilliantly so, no pathos there, thank-you, and don’t ever accuse ABC or George of not being receptive to the truest of rightwing believers, the Roundtable was awful in your basic every Sunday sense of being awful. And then there’s the truly awful Green Room, an on-line phenomenon I’ve ignored until this week’s This Week.  Read more 

Public Eye blog. Vaughn Ververs of The Early Show:

It’s not every day that we see a Democratic Senator from the Northeast pandering to Southern Republicans by associating himself sympathetically with the Confederate cause during the Civil War – so isn’t it newsworthy when that actually happens? …

Outside of a couple blog entries [blush], I haven’t seen Biden’s comments reported anywhere else. …

I’m not sure which is more disturbing – Biden’s apparent belief that this somehow helps him politically or the audience’s reaction. According to Bandy’s report, “the crowd loved it.”

Today, the blog. Tomorrow, the airwaves?  Read more 

[Followup at at CBS Early Show blog.]

Will this be Joe Biden’s Trent Lott moment?

26 days after Democrats win the mid-terms, Joe Biden exhorts the Republican party to “get back up.” Then, Biden (D-Hair Club for Men) claims that, just because the country voted Democrats back into power, that doesn’t mean the country really endorsed them. And then, Biden uses South Carolina’s pro-slavery past as a “humorous” talking point, to pander to Republicans who think viewing South Carolina’s Articles of Secession is the ideal way to celebrate a white Christmas. Even for testing the waters in a Southern state with an early 2008 primary, this is beyond absurd. And oh—this was all before a Republican audience, who lapped it up:

Biden charms local GOP
The speaker was U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a likely candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

This Yankee senator quickly disarmed his conservative audience, many of whom came expecting partisan attacks on President Bush and Republicans in general. …

“America needs, and I need, for the Republican Party to get back up,” [Biden] said.

The Republicans have been “up” arguably since Gingrich, certainly since Bush took power in 2000, and have controlled all three branches of government since 2002. And look where we are. So, 26 days after the Republicans lose power, Biden thinks they need to be “up” again? Why does America need that? More to the point, why does Biden?

But it gets better. Then Biden—before a Republican audience, remember—goes on to claim that the 2006 midterms weren’t really a Democratic victory at all:

“The mid-term election may have been a rejection of the policies of this administration,” Biden said. “But it was not an embrace of the Democratic program or the Democratic Party. We’re in a state of flux right now and have a lot of problems that need to be resolved.”

Sure, a person wants to be gracious. There’s no reason to go down there, talk to the losers who led the Republican Party to loss of their status as a national party, and rub their noses in it. But why trash your own party?

But now it gets much better. If you think that’s bad, here’s what Biden has to say about slavery and Southern secession:  Read more