The Case For Biden

Oh hawkeye, read the goddamn article and stop trying to act like you know everything.

It’s tempting to lay all the blame for this toxic political situation on the hardline conservatives in the House, but Boehner ultimately made things worse for himself and for everyone else by stringing them along and making promises he couldn’t keep. He would talk tough about standing up to President Obama and reining in an out-of-control president, even though he was fully aware that he lacked any real power to do the sort of damage to Obama’s agenda that he promised. Boehner pursued this reflexively anti-Obama course because it was electorally beneficial and because it helped secure his own position, but it came at the expense of any real accomplishment.

Here's an interesting read if you want the entire story. It is an excellent read, I highly recommend it if you are really interested in the failed "Grand Bargain".

Quote:

It’s tempting to lay all the blame for this toxic political situation on the hardline conservatives in the House, but Boehner ultimately made things worse for himself and for everyone else by stringing them along and making promises he couldn’t keep. He would talk tough about standing up to President Obama and reining in an out-of-control president, even though he was fully aware that he lacked any real power to do the sort of damage to Obama’s agenda that he promised. Boehner pursued this reflexively anti-Obama course because it was electorally beneficial and because it helped secure his own position, but it came at the expense of any real accomplishment.

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/25/john_boehners_legacy_of_failure_he_resigns_with_few_admirers_and_fewer_accomplishments/

"made things worse for himself" is too kind by a country mile, I'll bet that this is written by an R hater who wants to hate all R's...he gave up any chance of success by way of bad judgment. Another thing that he and Obama can swap stories on soon.

If you don’t know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat in 2016, you haven’t been paying attention.

But he was not the only grizzled political veteran making this sort of claim this week. At the time of this writing we are still “Waiting for Joe” but from the sound of the Vice Presidents Biden’s comments, if he isn’t running he’s decided to throw his weight behind Jim Webb’s possible Independent campaign. He came out swinging against Hillary Clinton, with a sucker punch over her admission in the recent debate that among the NRA, the pharmaceutical industry and the Iranians, she’s also proud that Republicans consider her an enemy. Her comment was greeted with wild cheering among Democrats who viscerally agreed with her allusion to Roosevelt’s famous line about “welcomed their hatred” in reference to the party which has turned from an opposition party into a gang of anarchists and witch hunters. Oddly, Biden seems to think that fairly obvious recognition of reality is a weakness. He made the point in several different venues over the last couple of days that he does not think of Republicans as “enemies” but rather sees them as friends, the implication being that he will be able to work with them in ways the former secretary of state cannot.

Ezra Klein suggests in this piece for Vox that this may be Biden’s argument going forward and the ultimate rationale for his campaign. Unfortunately, while this sweet sentiment surely pleases the ghosts of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan, it has no bearing on the reality of American politics in 2016.

I have written about this before, but it’s worth repeating. Dan Pfeiffer, one of President Obama’s closest advisors, gave an exit interview to Jonathan Chait when he left the White House a while back, in which he explained the evolution of thinking from the time the administration first assumed office.

Per Chait:

Quote:

The original premise of Obama’s first presidential campaign was that he could reason with Republicans—or else, by staking out obviously reasonable stances, force them to moderate or be exposed as extreme and unyielding. It took years for the White House to conclude that this was false, and that, in Pfeiffer’s words, “what drives 90 percent of stuff is not the small tactical decisions or the personal relationships but the big, macro political incentives.”

It certainly did not help that Joe Biden was friends with Republicans back in 2011 when he went behind Harry Reid’s back and negotiated the deal which will be remembered as the low point of the Obama administration — a low point which served as a lesson in how not to deal with Republicans.

Biden’s paean to bipartisanship is old thinking, a vestige of the past. That he is still making this argument in the face of all we know should strike fear into the hearts of Democrats everywhere, should he actually become president.

Every day there are new signs that he intends to enter the race