Joe on the Grill

I don't know who this woman is, but she should get a raise. Here is an interview with Joe Biden the way they all should have been conducted. And guess what: the Obama campaign has cut this TV station off from further interviews. Biden answers every question with demonstrable lies, and steam is visible coming out his ears as the thing progresses. Incredible.



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Innes adds: Here's the Obama campaign's objection that I got from the YouTube video information. Barbara West of WFTV in Orlando, Florida, did the interview.

There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public -- not misleading the American people with false information. Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her.

This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election.

I must say that I was as surprised by the Karl Marx question as Biden was. He says, "Are you joking? Is that a serious question?" I thought it was a bit much. If Obama is a Marxist, so is the entire Democratic Party, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. Let's not act surprised. Nonetheless, I don't see what they're complaining about. Ole' Joe got to bluster on with his campaign rhetoric at length. He just didn't like it that the interviewer so rudely drew attention to Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark, his ACORN connections, and Biden's own reminder to those of us who are aware that America has powerful and profoundly evil enemies in the world that they will test young Barry's backbone and judgment very soon after he assumes office.

These Obama people just cannot deal with criticism or pointed questioning of any kind. I don't mean to be inflammatory, but Obama and his followers act as though their critics are blaspheming the prophet Mohammed, not a candidate for political office. Look at the Terry Tate videos. He responds to political opposition the way Muslims do toward Christian evangelistic activity. Shout them down! Express outrage! Burn their churches! OK, yes. I'm off on a tangent.

Harold adds:

Perhaps it was a tangent, but not a wild one. This is just another expression of the deep affinity the hard Left has with radical Islam. It's not so much that they--the hard Left or radical Islam--cannot take criticism; it is that they do not allow it. And when they have the juice to make it stick, free speech is not on the menu. The Obama campaign has a long list of threatening gestures and attempts to silence opposition; when they have their hands on the knobs controlling the government, you can bet they will brook no opposition--and will be checking back over the list they are making now to see who they can best make an example of. Perhaps, dear readers, you thought show trials were an artifact of 1930's Stalinism; get ready for a return.

What Running Mates Do Joe Did

Last night, watching the Veep Debate, even I felt an urge to vote for Obama-Biden. Then I shook myself, and said, "No, David! It's all an illusion!"

Biden played his running mate attack dog role effectively. He tore into McCain and made the Arizona Senator look like a slug. According to Biden, McCain voted to cut money for the troops, voted twenty times against alternative fuels, voted against health coverage for kids, voted against the Violence Against Women Act, proposes to tax health care benefits, and would give $4 billion to oil companies that are already making $600 billion in profits. On top of all that, he opposed the regulation of Wall Street as he has opposed all regulation. (You see? The financial crisis is John McCain's fault!) And he wants to make the same mess of our health care system by getting the government out of that too!

Who would vote for a beast like that? Whereas, according to Biden, Barack Obama anticipated every major problem that we face today, including the credit crisis, and urged the right actions for each one. The guy's amazing! And he loves the middle class too.

Biden actually got angry at McCain's record, but there was no such alarm and outrage from the other side of the stage. He is not a Maverick, Biden said, then made a list of charges.

Palin took a few jabs at Obama. But whereas there is a mountain of dirt she could have dumped on him, she only kicked some dust on his shoes.

She spent a lot of her boasting of how ordinary she is and how well she relates to ordinary people. Biden buried that with his own testimony, ending with an almost tearful remembrance of sitting at the bedside of his child who was hovering between life and death. Furthermore, Palin struck me as too ordinary. She seemed like a nice lady you'd meet at the bowling alley. People expect a certain amount of polish in their Presidents and prospective Presidents.

McCain-Palin will not win simply with their boasts of being Mavericks and just like us. They need to expose the Obama illusion. The debates are the big opportunity because they get no free airtime with the press. Palin's job last night was to do the heavy lifting on that. She did not.

Politics Is Not Supposed to be This Funny

Since the comedy establishment has been refusing to have fun with Barack Obama (out of reverence? out of fear?), the amateurs have had to step in and fill the void. Their job is made the easier because he is so ridiculous and presents such an easy target: his claims are outlandish, he takes himself far too seriously, and his followers are cultish.

You recall Gerard Baker's "He Ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World."

You have to read "Filling That Experience Gap" from IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion).

"So now I reveal my awesome pick for running mate," Barack Obama told the assembled crowd. "Joe Biden."

There was silence and some coughing from the audience.

"I will remind you that I am Obama -- the One -- and everything I do is perfect and should not be questioned!"

The crowd cheered enthusiastically for Biden. "You're the best, Obama!" one of the reporters yelled.

"I just want to say that Turok Osama here is very clean and articulate for a black man." Biden patted Obama on the head. "I think he's a great candidate -- not as good as McCain -- but still pretty good."

"Why did you wait until 3 AM to send the announcement text message?" a reporter asked.

"Well, I started working on it at 6 PM," Obama said, "but those text messages are hard. I mean, like each number represents three or four letters... and I forget how you do the punctuation. But, hey eventually I got that message out. And that's the determination I plan to bring to my presidency... to hit buttons until things get done!"

"Isn't Bocka Yo'Mama precious! Just look at those ears!" Biden flicked one of Obama's ears.

"Did you pick Biden to fill your experience gap?" a reported.

"I don't have an experience gap!" Obama answered indignantly.

"Blasphemer!" another member of the press yelled at the reporter.

"But Biden does have more experience at the... uh... stuff with... er... countries that aren't ours..."

"Foreign policy," Biden assisted.

"See, he knows that stuff." ...

Don't stop there. Follow the link, but not at the office because your loud whooping laughter will tip the boss off that you're not working.

Between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I have been having the time of my life with this campaign. Imagine if the Republicans had nominated Mike Huckabee? No. The body wasn't made to laugh that hard.

Thoughts on Biden

My wife, the lovely and gracious Pamela, asked me in exasperation upon hearing this morning's news of the Lord Obama's chosen sidekick, how we have come to the point that a Senator, caught out as a plagiarist, can not only hold his seat but be drafted onto the national presidential ticket? In response, and this is where the graciousness of my wife comes in, I set off on one of my political/constitutional jags that I am wont to descend into upon hearing yet again of developments displeasing to me.

The pompous and egotistical Biden was famously caught channeling not only the spirit, but the very words, of a still living Neil Kinnock, a well known British Laborite/Socialist. His taste in choosing whom to plagiarize aside, the arrogance/stupidity/condescension in thinking his rube audience would not know that the words he spoke were not his own shows that for Biden, the show is all. He must at all times be the smartest man in the room; I feel certain this is a personal rule with him. If he thus has to crib from the speech of another Titan walking the earth, it will just have to be done. So much for his psychological profile.

There are many such cads, rascals, wastrels, and miscreants holding Senate seats--Ted Stevens, anyone? But how can this be so? James Madison clearly expected as much to be true about the House of Reprehensibles, er, Representatives, but counted on the short duration of appointment to keep the aisles clear. The House members were to be on a short leash, answerable to the concerns of a small district within a small part of the nation, and given control of the federal purse strings. The Senate was to be a more august body--"the most important deliberative body in the world", according to their own press releases--and to take up business further removed from the local interests of the farmers and townspeople of the young nation. Longer periods in office and indirect election were to facilitate deliberation of larger issues of politico-historical import, international relations, trade policy, war and peace, and issues impinging on the federal relation of the sovereign states. So what happened between Madison's careful design and today's free-wheeling saloon run by Dusty Harry Reid?

The simple answer is Progressivism. That wanton rebellion by High Modernity types who thought of the Madisonian constitution as a creaking old machine unsuited to the gleaming, fast moving nation state beginning its ascendancy on the world stage. Men such as Herbert Croly, founder of the still existing New Republic magazine, John Dewey and Oliver Wendall Holmes provided the theoretical juice, while Woodrow Wilson, another too smart for his britches swaggerer, flogged the progressive "reforms" the nation needed to go forward. Hence the "progressive" label. Transgressive is more accurate, but that by the by.

The reform most transformative of the Constitution was the 17th, which made the election of the Senate by the direct election of the people. A most democratic reform. Progressives thought more democracy is always better. The purer the better. Let the people decide. Vox populi, etc. Madison had envisioned a "constitutional space", as Harvey Mansfield has termed it, in certain crucial portions of the design. Madison did not have whole-hearted confidence in the people's ability to judge. He thought a nation of people with disparate interests and stations in life ought to have a constitution that takes that into consideration, balancing the wisdom of the few accomplished men of the world with the consent of the many. The life tenure of the federal judiciary was on the side of elevating and securing wisdom, the election by the people of the president "of all the people" by popular vote an important nod to consent. The House of Representatives by direct, popular, vote; the Senate by indirect means varying by state, but usually by the members of the State legislature. Thus a state's two Senate seats were to have been filled through the judicious and wise deliberations of men whose political experience and knowledge of their own state, as well as of the nation, tilted more toward wisdom, while still being tethered to the consent of the people, albeit indirectly.

The 17th Amendment shattered that part of the finely calibrated design. It's as if a tobacco chewing hick were to get his greasy hands on a BMW out back under the shade tree, proceeding to remove parts that don't seem to do anything, then stepping back and congratulating himself on his fine work. We have the BMW of constitutions ladies and gentlemen, designed by a master craftsman, and a bunch of shade tree mechanics coming after jerking on hoses and belts, throwing away funny looking parts, and trying to modify it to suit their juvenile tastes in political machinery. Loud pipes. Flames on the hood. Weird hubcaps.

And that is how a plagiarist like Joe Biden continues in good standing in the highest deliberative body in the world. Progressive wrench twisting made Senate seats available to people-pleasing demagogues, eager to provide "constituent services", once thought the province of only your district representative. Now there is no substantive difference between the upper and lower houses--even that terminology will get a rebuke from your political betters. Joe Biden, like all his colleagues in the Senate, step and fetch like any run of the mill Congressman, and pay close attention to bringing home their share of Federal bacon to their States. Notice the slick campaign literature from your Senators next time they're up for re-election. Anything about the higher purposes of the office? Only blatant braggadocio about what pork he has served up to you, his faithful supporter. Exactly what Madison intended to avoid. Biden does for Delaware what a new member in his seat could not do so easily or effectively--steer massive amounts of Federal largess to the bank accounts of as many voters as possible.

And thus a dishonorable action like plagiarism is not a career ending moral failure, but a mere embarrassment to be joked away. Caught stealing the thoughts of another and portraying them as your own? Hate it when that happens.