A Biden Compendium
“Senator Joe Biden’s personal story has been tested many, many times,” Robert Gibbs, Obama’s communications director, said on Fox News Sunday.
And the focus groups liked what they heard!
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Says Ed Rendell: “But Joe Biden’s going to grow on the American people very fast.”
He hasn’t even grown on Democrats all these years.
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“Joe Biden works in Washington but he doesn’t live there,” Gibbs responded.
He would if he didn’t represent a state that’s a train ride away.
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Dick Durbin on Biden saying during the primary that Obama wasn’t ready to be president. “If you can reach back into history, you’ll find quotes.”
History? It was a few months ago!
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“You can pull up a lot of quotes from August when these two guys were running against each other,” Gibbs said.
And your point is?
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A better answer: “He’s ready now.”
Geez, do I have to do everything for you guys?
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“Gibbs rejected the notion that Obama advertisements attacking McCain over the fact that he could not recall in an interview how many houses he owns is an example of the ‘slash-and-burn’ politics he once said he would reject.
“‘It’s a legitimate issue . . . he either forgot how many he has or he just wasn’t being truthful with those reporters,’ Gibbs said. ‘You’re out of touch if you have seven houses and don’t even remember.’
“Kaine, who was also on Obama’s shortlist, said on Fox that Biden would still help Obama win votes in his state, since he ‘comes from a state, Delaware, that borders Virginia.’ (The states are actually separated by Maryland.)”
Either Kaine forgot or wasn’t being truthful, but either way it’s a good thing he’s not on the ticket because he’s clearly he’s out of touch.”
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CNN report: Biden told an Obama ally: “You know, I’m trainable!”
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Biden say we cannot survive another “eight years of Bush & McCain.”
Huh, I thought we had just gone through eight years of Bush & Clinton.
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Amy Holmes on CNN: “Poor Dick Cheney, he wants his enemies back.”
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“[Biden] asked Mr. McCain in 2004 to leave his party and be the running mate for Senator John Kerry,” the New York Times reports.
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In his speech on Saturday, Biden cited Obama’s work on Walter Reed Hospital as his most impressive Senate accomplishment. But, like most things on Obama’s resume, his achievement has been vastly overstated.
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When Biden was saying we couldn’t survive another eight years of Bush & McCain, the crowd was chanting “Yes we can!”
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Obama: 2,201 delegates won
Clinton: 1,896 delegates won
Biden: 0 delegates won
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“According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, twenty-eight percent of the nearly one thousand delegates surveyed, super and otherwise, stated a preference for Clinton. Joe Biden, touted by many in the media as the most likely pick, came in second with six percent.”
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In his remarks on Saturday, Obama mentioned that Biden’s son Beau, the Delaware attorney general, was deploying to Iraq. He did not mention Biden’s son Hunter. Here’s why:
From Kos, unironically: “KStreetProjector and Atrios have both pointed to one of the things liberals should really be cheering about Joe Biden being on the Democratic ticket: The man is one of Amtrak’s biggest supporters.
“That support comes in several forms:
“Biden commutes to work each day on Amtrak and has been a strong supporter of the beleaguered rail service. He is an original co-sponsor of the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill (National Defense Rail Act), S.104, introduced on January 7, 2003. Introducing an earlier version of the bill with Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) on March 6, 2002, Biden stated, ‘For 30 years, I have witnessed Congress dangling a carrot in front of Amtrak’s eyes, funding it just enough for it to limp along. And I’ll tell you, this has to stop. Now is the time to commit politically and financially to a strong, safe, and efficient passenger rail system.’
“Biden has been particularly concerned with rail passenger security, and has, in the words of communications director Norm Kurz ‘worked furiously’ to secure funding for Amtrak to upgrade its tunnels, hire more cops and bomb-sniffing dogs, build more fences, and add lighting to terminals.
“Amtrak president George Warrington presented Biden with a Champion of the Rails award in June 2001 and the American Passenger Rail Coalition (APRC), a national association of railroad equipment suppliers and rail businesses, presented him its Rail Leadership Award in March 2002.
“Moreover, his younger son is on the Amtrak board, and in that capacity is a major advocate for the railroad.”
That’s right: Biden is Amtrak’s best friend in the U.S. Senate, which is fine as far as that goes, but his son is also on Amtrak’s board.
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And that’s not all. He’s a lobbyist. For the credit card industry.
“James Ridgeway wrote in the December 13, 2005, Village Voice:
Delaware senator Joe Biden’s son, R. Hunter Biden, provides another example: In 2003, The New York Times reported, he joined MBNA America Bank, the huge credit card empire, as a management trainee after graduating from Yale Law School. He moved up the ladder, becoming executive vice president, and now is a partner of Oldaker, Biden & Belair, a D.C. lawyer-lobbyist shop. In that capacity during 2003, he got a $100,000 annual retainer from MBNA to advise the company on ‘the Internet and privacy law.’
As it turns out, MBNA is Senator Biden’s biggest contributor. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Biden raised $147,700 from MBNA employees from 1999 to 2004. MBNA’s ties to the Bidens might seem ironic since the firm is usually viewed as a big Republican campaign fundraiser and was George W. Bush’s sixth-largest contributor during last year’s presidential campaign, with a total of $356,350.
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Peggy Noonan, January 2006: “The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations – as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back–you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He’s human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.
“In this, in the hearings, he is unlike Ted Kennedy in that he doesn’t seem driven by some obscure malice – Uh, I, uh, cannot, uh, remembuh why I hate you, Judge Alioto, but there, uh, must be a good reason and I will, um, damn well find it. When he peers over his glasses at Judge Alito he is like an old woman who’s unfortunately senile and quite sure the teapot on the stove is plotting against her. Mr. Biden is also unlike Chuck Schumer in that he doesn’t ask questions with an air of, With this one I’m going to trap you and leave you flailing like a bug in a bug zapper – we’re going to hear your last little crackling buzz any minute now!”
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TERRY MORAN: So let’s talk about experience, which you talk about a lot. You said recently that the strongest experience you have in foreign relations is that you grew up for four years as a child in Southeast Asia.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, that’s not exactly what I said. What I said was I think one of the things that sets me apart is that I spent time in other countries.
[Actual quote: “Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact that I spent four years living overseas when I was a child in southeast Asia.”]
BIDEN: “I think he’s right. That is his strongest [foreign policy] credential.”
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Not anymore. Now Joe Biden is.
Posted on August 25, 2008