Biden Our Time With Europe

We passed on some tidbits about Joe Biden kicking Euro-ass and taking names before; here is an encore:

Politicus: Europe in for a letdown if it's counting on Kerry
John Vinocur IHT / Mar 30, 2004

...Many influential Europeans seem to believe that Senator John Kerry in a Democratic White House would restore both respectful equanimity to the American side of the trans-Atlantic relationship and, perhaps more naïvely, aim to redefine U.S. interests in a way that did not seem so self-interestedly American.

Pushed to the extreme, this might be called the European School for Reforming America. In this notion, a needy United States seeks out European counsel, converts to multilateralism and submits get-tough inclinations to the United Nations for the veto-ready muster of China, Russia and France. In the Rayburn Building's Gold Room, such tones were unmistakably absent from the remarks of Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and of Representative Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. At a seminar sponsored by the University of Michigan, Biden and Lantos were joined by Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House committee, and Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under Bill Clinton, to talk about the European Union and the United States before a group that included the German and French ambassadors in Washington.

In looking eternally inward, Biden said, the European Union's leading members had for the most part had taken their eye off the ball about the rest of the world. Europeans misguidedly tended to regard the United States as an imperial power, he added. And their leaders offered no really constructive alternatives to the Iraq war.

Recalling that he had talked to six European government chiefs about the war, Biden caricatured how they would have done things better. "Blah blah blah, international cooperation," the senator mimicked. He added, in his own voice, "Give me a break, huh."

When Biden offered the possibility, beyond more civility, of a future in contrast to the Bush administration, it was in a plague-on-your-houses context. He said of the two, Europe and Bush, "You have fallen in love with international institutions to the extent that this administration has fallen in love with unilateral action."

For good measure, Biden threw in the view that the European Union will not have a unified foreign policy, and with it, the phrase, "I hope you do, I wish you well, but I see no evidence you're going to spend the money needed" to create a serious European military force either.

Biden left the prospect of a trans-Atlantic emotional healing to Lantos, who was born in Europe. He saw none at hand. There was no hatred in America for Europe, he said, just "disenchantment and disillusion." The new American college generation "couldn't care less" about Europe.

...Biden suggested at least one [European leader] did [understand US politics]. He told his audience of visiting an unnamed European leader whose government opposed the war in Iraq. Do you think it's more important to have the situation in Iraq righted than to see Bush defeated, the senator asked the European.

The leader cleared his throat, hemmed and hawed, began three different sentences, and, according to Biden, finally gave an answer. "Yes," he said.

More complete excerpt below.

MORE: We toss in the wit and wisdom of Joe Biden.

At one end of a marble hall in the U.S. House of Representatives' Sam Rayburn office building, George W. Bush's re-election aspirations were taking a jostling. Testimony before the Sept. 11 commission contended that the self-described war president had not paid attention early or fully enough to warnings about Al Qaeda's murderous capabilities.

About 100 strides down the hall, at the same time last week, some of Europe's grandest illusions about what a new Democratic administration might mean to the European Union were also being jarred, minus the din and camera lights next door. Congress's leading Democratic voices on foreign policy, with a trace of the disdain that so rankles Europeans, suggested that their critical view of the European Union's weaknesses was intact, and that in puckering up for a November embrace Europe might have to settle for a formalistic kiss.

This may come as a surprise in Europe, where wide segments of opinion, official and public, confidential or boisterous, want Bush beaten. Many influential Europeans seem to believe that Senator John Kerry in a Democratic White House would restore both respectful equanimity to the American side of the trans-Atlantic relationship and, perhaps more naïvely, aim to redefine U.S. interests in a way that did not seem so self-interestedly American.

Pushed to the extreme, this might be called the European School for Reforming America. In this notion, a needy United States seeks out European counsel, converts to multilateralism and submits get-tough inclinations to the United Nations for the veto-ready muster of China, Russia and France. In the Rayburn Building's Gold Room, such tones were unmistakably absent from the remarks of Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and of Representative Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. At a seminar sponsored by the University of Michigan, Biden and Lantos were joined by Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House committee, and Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under Bill Clinton, to talk about the European Union and the United States before a group that included the German and French ambassadors in Washington.

In looking eternally inward, Biden said, the European Union's leading members had for the most part had taken their eye off the ball about the rest of the world. Europeans misguidedly tended to regard the United States as an imperial power, he added. And their leaders offered no really constructive alternatives to the Iraq war.

Recalling that he had talked to six European government chiefs about the war, Biden caricatured how they would have done things better. "Blah blah blah, international cooperation," the senator mimicked. He added, in his own voice, "Give me a break, huh."

When Biden offered the possibility, beyond more civility, of a future in contrast to the Bush administration, it was in a plague-on-your-houses context. He said of the two, Europe and Bush, "You have fallen in love with international institutions to the extent that this administration has fallen in love with unilateral action."

For good measure, Biden threw in the view that the European Union will not have a unified foreign policy, and with it, the phrase, "I hope you do, I wish you well, but I see no evidence you're going to spend the money needed" to create a serious European military force either.

Biden left the prospect of a trans-Atlantic emotional healing to Lantos, who was born in Europe. He saw none at hand. There was no hatred in America for Europe, he said, just "disenchantment and disillusion." The new American college generation "couldn't care less" about Europe.

Indeed, for Lantos, the European-American bond was now "a cold-blooded, cynical relationship." Perhaps a bit ironically, he then explained the situation as a basis for optimism in that it perhaps made for more rationality on both sides.

All this, word for word, might not be Kerry's party's message in the strictest sense. Yet it came from the mouths of two influential Democrats who did not get to their leading roles in forming congressional opinion on foreign affairs by nonconsensual posturing or freaky one-man crusades. Indeed, Kerry would very much need their support if he wanted to reverse the Bush administration and participate in the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocol on the environment - symbolic issues for Europe that European ambassadors here do not expect to rank high among the candidate's priorities if elected. In fact, since getting cornered with a remark that many foreign leaders wanted him to win (and for reasons of discretion, not being able to identify them when pressed by the Bush campaign), Kerry has had effectively to disavow two such endorsements with an advisory that he would neither seek nor accept support from overseas.

Part of this was a no-brainer in the American political context: A statement of backing for Kerry from former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia prompted Rand Beers, Kerry's foreign policy adviser, to describe the ex-leader as "an avowed anti-Semite whose views are totally deplorable."

The other pledge of support required much more subtlety, bearing as it did the mark of those in Europe who would cast Kerry as an American flagellant, ready for a virtual apology to all for America's size, strength, and national instincts. Before he was elected prime minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said he was "aligning" himself with the Democrat. After Zapatero's victory and his statement that Spain would pull its troops out of Iraq if UN authorization was not forthcoming, Kerry was caught in the position of having to deal with a self-appointed European ally apparently clueless about American politics. Kerry urged Zapatero to reconsider on Iraq and said he should "send a message that terrorists cannot win by their acts of terror."

Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution, who served as foreign policy adviser to the Howard Dean campaign for the Democratic nomination, verbally shrugged. If Kerry wins, he said, there may be a new effort at better understanding, but "there's going to be real disappointment in Europe, in terms of their expectations, about everything being hunky-dory again. I don't think many Europeans understand U.S. politics."

Biden suggested at least one did. He told his audience of visiting an unnamed European leader whose government opposed the war in Iraq. Do you think it's more important to have the situation in Iraq righted than to see Bush defeated, the senator asked the European.

The leader cleared his throat, hemmed and hawed, began three different sentences, and, according to Biden, finally gave an answer. "Yes," he said.

Comments

[Bustear]

Now, if Biden would just talk tough to his hairdresser we might get somewhere.

[Marduk]

Just a bald-faced attempt to take another plank out from under W. Anyone with a memory that goes back beyond the last news cycle knows that Biden is full of it.

Schroeder pulled the same stunt, going suddenly anti-American when the polls said it was a good gamble. Paid off for him. Guess a war on terror can make even a Democrat pretend like he's tough on our rivals.

Besides, isn't Kerry French? He looks French, and I hear he served in Vietnam.

[Michael Hiteshew]

Actually, Biden almost never fails to impress me. He's got a realistic view of diplomacy. In short, he says, the US shouldn't be afraid to do the easy, symbolic things, but also shouldn't apoligize for doing what we think is right.

He also understands the Teddy Roosevelt quip, "Talk softly, but carry a big stick". When you're the biggest power on the planet, there's no need to say it. Everyone is keenly aware of it. It just needlessly rankles people and ruffles feathers to point it out. It's counterproductive. They know you're the strongest. When you shout it at them, it tends to scare the hell out of them actually. If you live in the US, I don't think you can understand how immensely powerful we seem to others.

[Just Some Guy]

Biden is all over the map. He speaks well and comes across as smart and informed, but he's terribly inconsistent. And his repetition of the lie that the Iraq war was a unlateral action is shameful.

[ed]

Europeans should be happy that we haven't abandoned the NATO treaty ...

YET.

[RonG]

Still, it sounds to me like Bush has changed the US foreign policy strategy ( which the Democrats were unwilling to do ) and now the Democrats are going to follow it ( now that Bush has done the dirty work and taken the heat for it - from the Democrats ).

[ic]

"we haven't abandoned the NATO treaty ..."
Of course not, we've just added, I believe, 11 members there, to dilute the chocolate makers' voice.

[ic]

There are 7 new members. They are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

[Moonbat_One]

The most aggravating thing about the Europeans is that they expect the US to put its interests behind Europe's, and to seek their guidance and approval so their sense of importance and pride is maintained. Could you possibly imagine how they'd respond if our positions in the world were somehow reversed?

[CJ]

Senator Joe Hairplugs Biden serves as a stark reminder of the tragedy that can ensue when the hairplugs are drilled too deep.

[grayson]

Michael, When has the U.S. ever talked loudly? Yes, we've come out and said, "If you're a terrorist, you're going to die. If you're a government that supports them, you're going to die." Yeah, that's loud (it's also fair warning), but it's not like we're pounding our shoes on the table yelling, "We will bury France!"

[MEC2]

If there is to be a resuscitation of the Democrats as a serious national party, it will be because men like Joe Biden helped anchor the foundation while the wave of apoligism, pacifism, and socialism washes back out to sea. He is one of the few serious men left in the Democrat party, and one of the few I would trust with the grown up chair and big red button if I stepped out of the room...

[J_Crater]

If Europe is going to be dissapointed, just think about half of the "hate Bush" folks who expect everything Bush did (or would do) will be rolled back. There are come realities that are great too painful to face.
Is it my imagination or is most (if not all) of article above duplicated (as a more exact copy).
This isn't an attempt to lean to Senator Biden plageristic proprensities, or is it.

[TM]

Is it my imagination or is most (if not all) of article above duplicated (as a more exact copy).

It was so good I thought you would want to read it twice. And since I have no idea how well links to the International Herald Tribune hold up, I figured, better safe than sorry.

The subtle Biden/Kinnock tribute is a bonus.

[Andrew X]

I’ve always thought Biden was a fairly straight-up guy, but he gave a very prominent speech about a year ago that I cannot let pass.

The gist of it was that Bush screwed up the pre-war diplomacy, and specifically that if Bush had only gone about it slower, the allies would have come around during the summer of 2003, and by fall we all woulda been marching to Baghdad arm-in-arm.

Well, I was horrified that an ostensibly intelligent Senator versed in these matters could say something so astonishingly obtuse. Anyone going back in time to February 2003 can tell that the longer it went on, the more the protesters and their allied governments, and Saddam, were going to dig in their heels, thinking they would prevail in the end. Simple psychology can tell you that.

Not to mention what we now know about palms being greased big time by Sadddam.
Further not to mention the military ramifications of sitting out there in the desert for another six months.

It was just so patently absurd that I have had trouble taking Biden seriously since.

[Pat Curley]

Don't forget, Biden's also playing to the home audience when he says that a Kerry administration isn't going to make things a whole lot easier on Europe. It works for Kerry in two ways; gets the Euro-lefties to stop talking about how they're rooting for Bush to lose, and it reassures moderates over here that Nuancy Boy isn't going to be a pushover for Chirac & Co.

[ralph phelan]

If only the Dems had nominated Lantos or Biden, they might have a chance.

[Doesn't Care for Kerry]

This kind of sentiment from Joe Biden is all well and good, but it isn't Joe Biden who would be president, it's John Kerry; a man who had no clue that bragging about his support from foreign leaders would actually hurt him with regular Americans. The man is a complete throwback to the Clinton days of kissing Euro ass. [Deleted] John Kerry. Seriously, [delete] him.

[JB]

Let me cut to the chase: Biden is a spinner extraordinaire. He hasn't a candid bone in his body. This is another example.

This is part of an effort to convince the US electorate the it won't really matter if Kerry is in office insofar as the war on terror. Excuse me, but bullshit. Wishful thinking, the kind guys like Andrew Sullivan are forced to engage in because of issues like gay marriage.

The argument usually goes that Kerry will be forced to continue American policy vis-a-vis Iraq and North Korea. Well, what about emerging threats? What about unforeseen situations that may require bold and decisive action? What about his record of undermining US national security at every turn? History has a way of repeating itself -- he can inflict a thousand small cuts on us, till we bleed to death.

[Paul]

Rather dumb concept, waiting until the summer of 2003 rather than going in the spring. Our troops were just getting out of their MOPP suits in late April and the temps were already above 100F. Lots of politicians blather about supporting the troops and then completely ignore their well-being. Many would have left them sitting there all summer while Hans Blix found nothing. What would we do then? How many more countries would come on board given that no WMD were being found? Giving the inspectors more time would probably have worked the other way - the pressure to lift sanctions would have increased.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I've had a difficult time taking Biden seriously since I learned he graduated in the bottom 10% of his law school class.

He also has a long history of talking one way--and letting Republicans think he's being so verrrry reasonable about all this--before voting exactly the opposite. The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings being a good example.

[TM]

The Wit and Wisdom of Joe Biden.

[rebmiami]

I remember the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. However, it's convincing and you can find yourself falling for it. Biden has a refreshingly candid and direct public demeanor that makes one think of a high echelon member of corporate America or the military or some other sector where things actually get done and not emoted about. However good he sounds though, he votes LLL, doesn't he?

I have the same problem with Graham and Lieberman. With the latter, after his heart rending speech about Clinton's moral failing, he voted with the "it's just sex" crowd.

All that said, I agree that he is one of the very few remaining serious Democrats in this country.

[Howard Cornell]

Did someone say that signing off on Kyoto would be a symbolic gesture and an appropriate thing to do in a Kerry administration? The next thing Biden and the rest of these nannies will want to do is turn over the Internet to UN governance.