Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Joe Biden warns that electing Obama will lead to global crisis

Seriously, I don't know what this guy is on.

You have to read the whole thing, it's incredible. Full story here -- http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html

Vote for Obama, and invite an international crisis! :rolleyes: Way to sell your candidate, Joe.

If there is such a crisis, it will be because enemies perceive Obama as being weak. Say what you will about McCain (and I've said plenty!) but that would *not* be the impression his White House would make.

PJ

Seriously, does this guy *ever* think before he speaks?

"Elect Barak President and it'll cause an international crisis! Vote for *us*!"

Geez!

Nan

Honestly, I think Biden's intent was to try and draw a parallel between Obama and JFK and state that Obama could handle a crisis new in his presidency just like JFK did. The problem is that somewhere between his brain where the idea originated and his mouth where it finally saw daylight the "Biden Factor" came into affect.

I think Biden's attempts to pat himself on the back for all of his foreign policy "expertise" while concurrently trying to paint Obama as JFK reborn collided and "that" speech came out.

As a student of human psychology politician's never cease to fascinate me. All through the primary Biden hammered at Obama for his lack of experience and if I'm not mistaken called him naive more than once. Now he hails him as the second coming. Which Joe Biden (if either) is the real person and whom should we believe?

Reading this thread made me think of a long ago vice presidential debate where one candidate said to the other (paraphrased), "Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy, and you are no Jack Kennedy."

Perhaps Biden should remember how much hoopla that caused....

Classicella, I believe that was 1988 (Lloyd Bentson to Dan Quayle), so 20 years ago. Killer line. I remember Reagan having fun with it: "Senator, I knew Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was a friend of mine."

One other thing about Biden's speech that stuck out to me:

Now, I understand the figure of speech and all, but I don't know if he should be bragging about *forgetting* about foreign affairs.

Michael, you said:
Yeah, very likely. I also think it's possible that underneath that loyal running mate persona, he still worries about Obama's inexperience, so this is a reflection of his own inner fears (conscious or subconscious).

Well, this campaign needed some comic relief, anyway. Biden's a gold mine.

PJ

Interesting. I read the article which reported Biden's remarks, and my impression was that of a man warning his faithful followers that electing Barack Obama to the presidency would not make all of America's problems go away. Of course, electing John McCain wouldn't make them all go away either, but that outcome would mean that Joe Biden would remain a senator, at least for now.

I think that what Biden said was true. One of the reasons (not the only one, of course) for the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was that Nikita K. thought he could bluff the relatively young and inexperienced John F. and force him to accept the missiles in Cuba. After all, Nikita had fought the Germans in the Great Patriotic War, and I believe he was an enlisted man during the October Revolution in 1917. He was battle-tested, as was Kennedy, but Nikita thought John would blink first.

That's what Biden was talking about, I believe. Somebody is going to engage in a staring contest with our next president and see who blinks first. If Obama is elected, it will be a test of his youth and relative inexperience. If McCain is elected, it will be a test both to see if the old man still has it and if the woman in the number two slot can pull the trigger when the moose are shooting back. Biden has to believe that his foreign policy experience in the Senate will be a valuable asset to President Obama.

This is indeed campaign fodder, and it's politically unfortunate that Joe didn't notice the press in the back of the room until the end of his remarks (as the article reports it), but I find it hard to bust a politician for being honest. It's so rare these days.

The Obama and McCain campaigns just came out of a national security briefing last week. I am left to wonder what might be brewing that may be in Biden's mind. A neophyte President is bound to be a target for testing by enemies -- and that's what disturbs me.

John Kennedy royally botched his meeting with Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev rolled him, and even Kennedy admitted it. The Soviets were emboldened and it led to the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (By the way, we were a lot closer to nuclear war at that point than people knew. I was 14, and my family was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone at the time. My father was a medical officer in the Navy, and he was given briefings and a lot of instruction on how to deal with radiation-induced illness during that period. He was pretty worried, although he wasn't allowed to talk much about it. He couldn't tell us much, but we all knew that the situation was dire.)

In any case, an inexperienced President is dangerous, not only to the country but to the world. I don't wish to start a fight, but I'd feel a lot safer if Obama were a little older and had a little more experience in foreign policy. He really worries me.

Nan

Nan, my experience was similar to yours, except I was a few years younger and my dad was in SAC (Strategic Air Command), which was at that time responsible for putting the nuclear-capable B-52s in the air and pointing them at targets in the Soviet Union. He was pretty tense for a few weeks, even after the missiles were reloaded onto ships and headed back to the USSR. There's no way to certain, of course, but I doubt that Richard Nixon would have been "rolled" by Khrushchev, although there's also no way to know if Nixon's choices would have led to an easing of tensions or full-scale nuclear war. McCain is more experienced at dealing with other countries, but Biden balances the Democratic ticket a bit. We'll all just have to vote, see who wins, and see how he deals with the problems which are sure to come.