"Joe's right..."

[Drunken Irishman]

In the 2008 primary, there was a common theme in the debates - most every major candidate agreed with Joe Biden. This was so frequent that the Biden campaign released a video of all the agreement and this newspaper ad:



What did they agree with Joe on?

In the NPR Democratic Candidate debate in Dec., 2007, the topic of China reforming and trade came up. Biden had this to say:

NORRIS (moderator): Senator Biden, I'd like to begin with you.

What kind of human rights commitment should the U.S. try to exact from China, particularly in advance of the 2008 Olympics? And how do you ensure that the country would actually live up to those commitments?

SEN. BIDEN: You can't ensure it but look, this is all about playing by the rules. I've been pushing, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for the last seven years, or the ranking member during that period, that we hold China accountable at the United Nations. We won't even, at the United Nations, we won't even designate China as a violator of human rights.

Now, what's the deal there? We're talking about competition. That's the — in terms of trade. It's capitulation, not competition. Name me another country in the world that we would allow to conduct themselves the way this country has — China — and not called them on the carpet at the U.N. Name me another country in the world who would use the trade practices they use with us, that we would not call them on the carpet.

NORRIS: So, Senator Biden, are you saying that you would call them on the carpet, that you would --

SEN. BIDEN: Absolutely. Why --

NORRIS: — that you would appoint a U.N. ambassador who would press for this?

SEN. BIDEN: And the reason I would is that, well, it's the one way to get China to reform. You can't close your eyes. You can't pretend. It is self-defeating. It's a Hobson's choice we're giving people here.

NORRIS: A Hobson's choice is how Senator Biden characterized this.

Senator Clinton, what kind of commitment should we try to exact from China?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I agree with Joe very much...

Now Biden framed the situation in a very interesting way - he called it a Hobson's choice. A Hobson's choice, if you're not familiar, is taking what is available or taking nothing at all.

This is an interesting discussion because, even over a decade later, it's still relevant today as the US and China are gripped in a trade war of Trump's creation. There's no doubt that Biden, in 2007, was advocating for a harsher response to China. But the way Biden/Clinton/Dodd and such advocated for accountability through more diplomatic and leverage means. Trump, of course, went and created a trade war over tariffs, which, to the best of my knowledge, has led to zero reforms in China and certainly hasn't leveled the trading playing field - it's just made things hostile and killed a good amount of farmers.

In an October, 2007 debate, Sen. Dodd agreed with Biden's statement in regards to Iran:

SEN. BIDEN: I would pledge to keep us safe. If you told me, Tim -- and this is not -- this is complicated stuff. We talk about this in isolation. The fact of the matter is the Iranians may get 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium; the Pakistanis have hundreds, thousands of kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

If by attacking Iran to stop them from getting 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, the government in Pakistan falls, who has missiles already deployed, with nuclear weapons on them, that can already reach Israel, already reach India, then that's a bad bargain.

Presidents make wise decisions informed not by a vacuum in which they operate, by the situation they find themselves in the world. I will do all in my power to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but I will never take my eye off the ball.

What is the greatest threat to the United States of America: 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in Tehran or an out of control Pakistan? It's not close.

MR. RUSSERT (moderator): Senator Dodd.

SEN. DODD: ... I agree with, Joe. I think the more immediate problem is Pakistan

Biden, even back in 2007, was right on Iran - their threat to the United States is just not there. However, as we've come to see, Pakistan is a growing, troubling problem. Here's an interesting article from 2018.

Biden was right - and his point remains right - about Iran ... over a decade later.

Later on in that same debate, there was this dust-up over the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which Hillary actually voted for (the only major Democrat in the race back then to do so). Biden had this to say about the amendment:

MR. RUSSERT (moderator): Senator Biden, do you agree with Senator Webb: It [Kyl-Liberman amendment] was, de facto, a declaration of war?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I think it can be used as declaration. Look, we have a problem in the Senate -- and I'm
not just directing this at Hillary; there were 75 other people who voted with her; we are in the minority --
that there are consequences for what we do.

And it's not even about going to war. Let's look at what happened from the moment that vote took place.
Oil prices went up to $90 a barrel.

Who benefits from that? All this talk of war, all this talk of declaring people to be terrorists droves up the
price of oil.

Secondly, we have emboldened Bush, at a minimum, his talk of world war III -- totally irresponsible talk.
We've emboldened him, Tim, to be able to move, if he chooses to move.

They're terrorists. The fact that they're terrorists on one side of the border or the other, we just declare
them terrorists. That gives him the color of right to move against them.

Thirdly, this has incredible consequences for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nobody talks about this. The 75
of our colleagues don't understand. We have no driven, underground, every moderate in Pakistan and in
Afghanistan.

This literally -- literally puts Karzai, as well as Musharraf in jeopardy. The notion is it plays into this whole
urban legend that America's on a crusade against Islam.

This was bad -- if nothing else happens; not another single thing -- this was bad policy. The president had
the ability to do everything that that amendment -- that resolution called for without us talking to it.
And all it has done is hurt us. Even if not another single action is taken, actions have consequences. Big
nations can't bluff.

WILLIAMS (moderator): Same question to Senator Clinton. What would be your red line?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, first of all, we have to try diplomacy, and I see economic sanctions as part of diplomacy. We
have used it with other very difficult situations -- like Libya, like North Korea. I think that what we're trying
to do here is put pressure on the Bush administration. Joe is absolutely right. George Bush can do all of
this without anybody. You know, that is the great tragedy and that's why we've got to rein him in, and
that's why we need Republican support in the Congress to help us do so.

The beauty here is that Biden actually kind of called Hillary out and did so in such a tactful way that in her response, she even conceded his point was correct.

But this portion of Biden's remarks are what stand out the most to me:

Thirdly, this has incredible consequences for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nobody talks about this. The 75
of our colleagues don't understand. We have no driven, underground, every moderate in Pakistan and in
Afghanistan.

This literally -- literally puts Karzai, as well as Musharraf in jeopardy. The notion is it plays into this whole
urban legend that America's on a crusade against Islam.

Over a decade later and we're still paying for this - the moderates in the region have all but vanished. This goes into our exact problem with Pakistan. But more importantly, it emphasizes something that I think Biden is absolutely, 100% correct on: this notion that America is on a crusade against Islam.

This was from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. candidates forum in Aug., 2007:

MR. OLBERMANN (moderator): Senator, thank you.

Senator Biden, we have two votes for competitor. Is China an ally or an adversary?

SEN. BIDEN: They’re neither. The fact of the matter is, though, they hold the mortgage on our house. (Crowd reacts.) This administration, in order to fund a war that shouldn’t be being fought and tax cuts that weren’t needed for the wealthy -- we’re now in debt almost a trillion dollars -- a trillion dollars to China. We better end that war, cut those taxes, reduce the deficit and make sure that they no longer own the mortgage on our home.

SEN. CLINTON: I want to say amen to Joe Biden, because he’s 100 percent right.

It's interesting that China once again comes up - but Biden's point is, again, right. Back in 2007, the debt the US was in to China was nearing a trillion dollars. As of today? It's $1.3 trillion. Even with Trump's tough talk to China, we're still massively in debt to 'em. They hold 28% of the US foreign debt. China has us by the neck still. I should point out that at the end of Obama's presidency, China's holdings of U.S. debt actually fell to its lowest level in six years - and was actually surpassed by Japan in Oct., 2016, as the United States' biggest foreign holder of its debt.

Time after time, though, Biden has proven himself right on a whole host of issues and his grasp of foreign policy is as extensive as it is impressive. Thom Hartmann, in 2014, claimed Biden was right about Iraq. If you recall, Biden proposed during the 2008 primary that the country be split into three. Obama never implemented this policy but it's still one that is still referenced even today.

Here's Hartmann's clip from 2014:

Here's an article on Biden's plan from just a couple years ago (2017).

Earlier I showed a transcript from an exchange on Pakistan. Twelve years after that debate, Biden brought up an interesting point about Pakistan during a conversation with Pres. Obama while he was Vice President:

Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, “Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?” Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. “And how much will we spend on Pakistan?” Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. “Well, by my calculations that’s a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?” The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.

From the Huffington Post: Excuse Me While I Troll You: Actually, Joe Biden Was Right

As well it should have at the time, for Biden was correct in the assessment that Pakistan was becoming a dangerous center of al Qaeda’s radicalism, compared with Afghanistan. Backing him was no less a figure than CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, who said in May of the same year that al Qaeda was no longer “operating in Afghanistan,” but rather, was “clearly ... rooted in the border region of Western Pakistan.”

Of course, this all came at a time when NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, was largely attempting to execute a counterinsurgency strategy, in an attempt to keep Afghans from falling back under the sway of the Taliban, prop up the Karzai regime, and hold whatever tenuous gains had been obtained from our misadventure in the “graveyard of empires.” Biden took a dim view of that approach as well, and he strongly advocated instead for a counterterrorism approach in Afghanistan as an alternative to the counterinsurgency-feeding troop “surge” that Gates and McChrystal backed. To Biden’s reckoning, a counterterrorism approach would be less costly, incur fewer military casualties, allow for a lighter military footprint in Afghanistan and a shift to the challenges of Pakistan, while still demonstrating that the United States was resolved to fight extremists in Afghanistan.

This article stemmed from Sec. Gates' blasting of Biden as being wrong on every foreign policy decision of the last 40 years. But here's what American scholar and peace activist David Cortright had to say about that:

I was involved in all of the issues he mentioned, from opposing the Vietnam War and U.S. support for dictators, to urging sanctions and diplomacy rather than war in Iraq. In my view Biden was right on all the policies Gates mentioned:

• Voting with the Congressional majority in 1973-74 to reduce financial support for the soon-to-collapse Saigon regime, which the United States had tried unsuccessfully to prop up and turn into a viable government through more than a decade of war.
  
• Hailing the fall of the tyrannical Shah of Iran in 1979 as an advance for human rights, which it was initially until the ayatollahs suppressed the secular opposition and installed a new form of theocratic oppression.
  
• Voting in the early 1980s against the excessive and bellicose military buildup of the Reagan Administration, especially the boondoggle B-1 bomber and the even more absurd Pentagon monstrosity, the MX mobile missile system.
  
• Showing the courage to vote in January 1991 against authorization for the first Gulf War, arguing along with 46 other Senators for sanctions and diplomacy rather than military attack.
  

Biden has been at the forefront of some of the most important issues to the left.

In 1986, Biden proposed the Global Climate Protection Act of 1986. It read:

Directs the President to establish a Task Force on the Global Climate to research, develop, and implement a coordinated national strategy on global climate. Requires such Task Force to transmit a United States Strategy on the Global Climate to the President within a year. Requires the President to then report to specified members of Congress on such report.

Directs the President to appoint an ambassador at large to coordinate Federal efforts in multilateral activities relating to global warming.

Directs the Secretary of State to promote the early designation of an International Year of Global Climate Protection.

Urges the President to give climate protection high priority on the agenda of U.S.-Soviet relations.

It was, at the time, one of the most expansive efforts to address climate change from the US government. It didn't pass, despite Biden's efforts, due to the fact climate change was not seen as much of a threat. In fact, NASA scientist James Hansen’s landmark testimony on climate change wouldn't come for another two years.

But that bill was the first time a US senator introduced any climate legislation in the US Senate.

The 1986 proposal is essentially what Nancy Pelosi adopted when she returned as Speaker of the House.

It remains to be seen what focus Biden's campaign puts on climate change and the environment but he absolutely was one of the leading forces fighting for the science behind climate change in the United States Senate.

Biden has also spent the last 40 years advocating for getting money out of politics. In 1974 he was pushing for publicly financed elections:

The Senator shows a healthy respect for money: “Politics is a damn expensive business. I had one hell of a time trying to raise money as a candidate. I had to put a second mortgage on our house to get that campaign started, and I ended up spending over $300,000 to get elected. I believe that public financing of federal election campaigns is the only thing that will insure good candidates and save the two-party system. It is the most degrading thing in the world to go out with your hat in your hand and beg for money, but that’s what you have to do if you haven’t got your own resources.”

He feels the indignity is compounded by the temptation to sell out to big business or big labor for financial help, and says it’s almost impossible for a candidate to remain true to his conscience in this situation. He admits that more than once he was tempted to compromise to get campaign money. “I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the ramrod character of my Scotch Presbyterian wife,” he says. “I am not a rich man. And my family does not have money. If I sold every thing I own, including my house and cars, I could probably’ scratch up $200,000, but that’s nothing compared to most of the guys in the Senate.”

From JOE BIDEN IN 1974 ON BEGGING FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: “THE MOST DEGRADING THING IN THE WORLD” (2015):

In a 2001 Senate debate, Biden provided a useful thumbnail summary of the history of reform efforts since the 1970s, including what he’d personally done, and declared: “Either all of America decides who runs for office, or only a few people. It’s as simple as that.”

Biden began by voting for 1974’s post-Watergate campaign finance reforms, which established public funding for presidential campaigns and limited contributions to and expenditures by all candidates for federal office. In 1977, he introduced legislation to prohibit a practice so brazenly, blatantly corrupt — letting politicians who lost or retired simply pocket any leftover campaign money — that it’s hard to believe that it was ever legal. (Ed Jones, a one-time Democratic representative from Tennessee, explained that he was keeping $140,010 on retirement because “It’s not the Government’s money, it’s the candidate’s friends’ money. … People give you that money for the purpose of getting re-elected or whatever you do with it.” The last remaining loopholes in this area were finally closed in 1989 with the Ethics Reform Act.)

Most notably, in the early 1990s Biden worked with John Kerry and Bill Bradley, then senators from Massachusetts and New Jersey, respectively, to create a system of public funding for congressional elections similar to the one for presidential candidates. Biden was also one of four Senate co-sponsors of the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act in 1997.

Biden has also been an advocate for workers' rights. Despite the Obama administration supporting a $12 minimum wage, Biden was out there supporting a $15 minimum wage.

Biden also supports banning non-compete clauses. This from last year:

"Give me an economic reason why a sandwich maker has to sign a non-compete clause," Biden said. "Tell me, other than to drive down wages, why you're not allowed to tell the man or woman next to you what you make without violating a contract. I call it greed."

On gun control, Biden has led the charge.

In 1989, Biden sponsored legislation that would have banned the AR-15.

Biden was also a key player in the Assault Weapons Ban:

Then as now, Vice President Biden played a central role in the debate. In 1994, Biden, then a senator from Delaware, strongly argued in favor of banning assault-style weapons. "In case after case of murderous rampages by disturbed and violent thugs, the ability of military-style assault weapons to kill and maim not just a few but eight or 10, 14, 35 people in just minutes has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt," he said.

Biden, like most every politician who's spent 40 years in the public spotlight, has some warts. His help with the 1990s crime bill are still something that hovers over his head - as is the Anita Hill hearings, his support for DOMA (initially) and his vote for the Iraq War. He's not the perfect candidate. But in reality, there isn't a perfect candidate. Even Bernie voted for that 1994 crime bill.

But time and time again, Biden, specifically in regards to foreign policy, seems to get it a great deal more than he doesn't. There's also something in all this that is largely being overlooked - Biden has substance. I think we forget this because he seems like goofy Uncle Joe who walks around speaking without thinking sometimes. This was something played up prior to the 2012 VP debate with Paul Ryan. Ryan, the wonky, walking encyclopedia of American policy, was going to school dumb ol' Joe.

Except it was Joe who schooled him - and school him on substance.

Biden isn't a dummie. He knows what he's talking about and some of these excerpts showcase it. But I think the perception is that he isn't very good in this arena, which is funny because, often, he surprises people with how well he does:

Analysis: Palin gets back on track, but Biden wins debate

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post (on Dec. 13th, 2007 Democratic Primary debate):

Joe Biden: Biden was extraordinary today. Not only did he speak specifically and with authority on issues both foreign and domestic, he was able to tie all of his arguments together under the umbrella of taking action and setting priorities. Biden also beat back the toughest question of the day when moderator Carolyn Ashburn asked him whether his past verbal gaffes in relation to race reflected a level of discomfort with the issue. "I got involved in politics because of the civil rights movement," Biden said with real emotion, adding that his career in the Senate reflected that commitment. When he finished speaking, all of his rivals offered a "huzzah" for his answer. Biden also played to Iowans' vanity by praising them as the foundation of democracy and asserting their right to be first. A complete performance by The Fix's Iowa darkhorse.

David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register:

Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson turned in some of their best debate performances of the 2008 campaign and were the day’s biggest gainers. Biden’s showing was the best of the day...

As for Biden, how can you lose when everybody else on the stage is praising your record on civil rights, literally applauds you, and the front-runner offers testimony on your behalf? You can’t. And unlike some of his past debate performances in which he seemed strident or comical, Biden was cool, commanding and presidential in this one.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks and months. Biden has done well but he's never really been positioned as the main guy. Not in 1988. Not in 2008. Not in 2012. That role changes. The guns will be out, so to speak, and I am interested to see how he handles that. I think he'll do well but because he has 40 years of legislation to defend, he'll be tasked with some difficult moments.

[Thekaspervote]

1. Thx for posting!!

[pnwmom]

2. Yeah, he was right. Except when he wasn't.

For example:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/12/biden-vs-warren-2020-democratic-primaries-bankruptcy-bill-225728

On a February morning in 2005 in a hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Joe Biden confronted Elizabeth Warren over a subject they’d been feuding over for years: the country’s bankruptcy laws. Biden, then a senator from Delaware, was one of the strongest backers of a bill meant to address the skyrocketing rate at which Americans were filing for bankruptcy. Warren, at the time a Harvard law professor, had been fighting to kill the same legislation for seven years. She had castigated Biden, accusing him of trying “to sell out women” by pushing for earlier versions of the bill. Now, with the legislation nearing a vote, Biden publicly grappled with Warren face to face.

Warren, Biden allowed, had made “a very compelling and mildly demagogic argument” about why the bill would hurt people who needed to file for bankruptcy because of medical debt or credit card bills they couldn’t pay. But Biden had what he called a “philosophic question,” according to the Congressional Record’s transcript of the hearing that day: Who was responsible? Were the rising number of people who filed for bankruptcy each year taking advantage of their creditors by trying to escape their debts? Or were credit card companies and other lenders taking advantage of an increasingly squeezed middle class?

Warren blamed the lenders. Many credit card companies charged so much in fees and interest that they weren’t losing money when some of their customers went bankrupt, she said. “That is, they have squeezed enough out of these families in interest and fees and payments that never paid down principal,” Warren said.

Biden parried. “Maybe we should talk about usury rates, then,” he replied. “Maybe that is what we should be talking about, not bankruptcy.”

SNIP

“But, senator,” Warren countered, “if you are not going to fix that problem, you can’t take away the last shred of protection from these families.”

[Cha]

3. It will be interesting.. I'm looking forward

to the results of his Rally tomorrow in Pittsburgh! :

[Skya Rhen]

4. Just as Joe is right about Trump being a threat to America's soul -every candidate should agree that

Joe was spot on in raising this issue in his campaign announcement video. He was the only one to challenge Trump's negative and destructive influence, head on, and this helped to set him apart from the rest of the field.

The recent hate crime in the synagogue shows, again, that Joe is right.

[Cha]

5. KICK!