Meet Joe Biden

They told Glenn that if he voted for McCain we'd have a Vice President with outsized influence...

The Times tells us abut the growing role of Joe Biden:

As the Ground Shifts, Biden Plays a Bigger Role

As previously reported, Biden took the lead for the White House and negotiating and selling the tax cut compromise.

Now, at the halfway point of a first term in which Mr. Obama has mostly relied on the counsel of a tightly closed inner circle, Mr. Biden is taking a more prominent and influential role. With the departure of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and Mr. Obama’s need to negotiate with Congressional Republicans if he is to advance his agenda, the president is increasingly using Mr. Biden as a multipurpose emissary while continuing to seek his counsel behind the scenes.

Mr. Biden not only played an important role in negotiating the tax deal with Republicans and trying to sell it to Democrats, but also was one of the people in the West Wing who urged Mr. Obama to try to find a compromise on the issue in the first place, aides said.

...Or, as Mr. Weiner put it in an interview, “Biden brings everything that Rahm Emanuel brings, but the major difference is everyone likes Joe Biden.”

Last February David Brooks told us that Joe had been given the lead on Iraq, and on overseeing shovel-ready stimulus spending (aka "union ready projects".  Biden took the lead on the minimalist approach to Afghanistan, which is mentioned today.  Also mentioned among his foreign policy endeavors:

Mr. Biden took the lead in nudging Iraq’s leaders into forming a new coalition government. He has been given the task of navigating growing tensions in Lebanon. And while Mr. Obama rejected Mr. Biden’s recommendation of a narrowly focused counterterrorism strategy for Afghanistan in favor of a more expansive counterinsurgency approach, the halting pace of progress in Afghanistan has left some administration officials wondering if the president might not eventually come around to Mr. Biden’s way of thinking.

There are still times when Mr. Biden has been left out of Mr. Obama’s decision-making, most notably in March, after his fence-mending trip was ruined by an Israeli announcement of new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem. Mr. Biden condemned the move as undermining the peace process.

But while Air Force Two was flying back to Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after a talk with Mr. Obama, called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and went much further than Mr. Biden had, leaving the appearance that Mr. Obama did not think the vice president had been forceful enough.

Those housing freeze negotiations have now collapsed, so maybe Biden really is a genius (or at least, smarter than the geniuses in the White House.)

More on fo-po - Biden has the ball (or at least, is offensive coordinator) on New START ratification:

...Mr. Biden used the opportunity to defend of the New Start treaty, enumerating the reasons he believed Republicans should vote for it in the lame-duck session.

He was executing his latest assignment from his boss. On Nov. 18, Mr. Biden convened a meeting to enlist support for the treaty from foreign policy luminaries in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Mr. Obama stopped by, and James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, gestured toward him.

“Wait a minute, Mr. President,” Mr. Baker said, according to a White House aide who was in the room. “We need to know who our point of contact is on this. Who do we call?”

Mr. Obama looked at Mr. Baker. And then he pointed to Mr. Biden.

I think that leaves Obama in charge of hoops and office parties.

NEVER MOVE ON:  Times coverage takes us back nearly twenty years to appraise Biden's value as an Ambassador to DC:

While Mr. Biden has credibility with the Democratic left, his long record in the Senate has enough moments in which he proved willing to work with or give ground to Republicans that they view him as less dogmatic than many other administration officials.

Mr. Biden alienated some of the left when he led the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings for Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991. While he voted against confirmation, Mr. Biden made decisions during the hearings, including not allowing testimony about pornography rentals, that many critics believed helped Justice Thomas weather the confirmation process.

The Chinese Nobel Laureate had some relevant thoughts:

Guests at the ceremony in Oslo’s City Hall listened instead to a recitation of his defiant yet gentle statement to a Chinese court before his incarceration last year. “I have no enemies and no hatred,” Mr. Liu said in “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement to the Court,” read aloud by the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann. “Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience.”

Does he have internet access?  It's interesting that he reached that concluson without even reading the Daily Kos or the HuffPo.

 

Comments

[Jack is Back!]

Ah, the Biden ascendency is on full throttle. Does this bode evil intents for a run in 2012 - a real insiders coup only matched by the Soviets in the 1950's. Pure poetic justice.

[Pofarmer]

Biden in charge. Isn't this the dude that got like 5% of the vote in the iowa primary?

[Thomas Collins]

Now I'm confused. I thought Obama had tapped Bill Clinton to exercise the powers of the POTUSey. Now he's replaced Clinton with Neil Kinnock? See LUN.

[Eat Shit and LIVE ! Holder !]

Bill of Rights in Cyberspace, amended
December 10th, 2010

I’m still refining my thoughts on a Bill of Rights in Cyberspace — the latest version in preparation for tomorrow’s PDF symposium on WIkileaks and transparency. The idea is to have principles we can point to when dealing with such events as Wikileaks, Google/Verizon, Google/China, and so on. Try this on for size:.

I. We have the right to connect.
II. We have the right to speak freely.
III. We have the right to assemble and act.
IV. Information should be public by default, secret by necessity.
V. What is public is a public good.
VI. All bits are created equal.
VII. The internet shall be operated openly.

[Janet]

So now the question - "Who is the President?" isn't questioning the background of Barry Barack Hussein Dunham Soetoro Obama....it literally means Who is the President now?!?!

[Jane (get off the couch - come save the country)]

I think that leaves Obama in charge of hoops and office parties.

I'd really like to see an accounting of what Obama has spent on parties and playing this year. We need to cut his budget. If anything does, that will make him resign.

[narciso]

First of all, why did the header title, remind me of the theme to 'the Jetsons", second, how does the promotion of someone who had gotten nearly every issue wrong, from the
Alaskan pipeline to the nuclear freeze to the
partition of Iraq, help anyone. questions, questions, btw, a masterful pieces today, Clarice, "the Boudica of the Beltway"

[Soylent Red]

why did the header title, remind me of the theme to 'the Jetsons"

Because Sheriff Joe is a cartoonish figure?

so maybe Biden really is a genius (or at least, smarter than the geniuses in the White House.)

When you consider the power inherent in the Presidency, those may be the scariest words ever written.

[Cecil Turner]

Biden in charge.

Obviously a ploy to boost Oby's approval numbers. Kinda like saying: "see, it could be worse."

[Neo]

At least now we know who runs the plantation

[narciso]

That only works, CT, if 'the deciders' actually understand that Biden has been wrongheaded, these past 30 some years.

[Extraneus]

...Mr. Biden used the opportunity to defend of the New Start treaty, enumerating the reasons he believed Republicans should vote for it in the lame-duck session.

Boy, I'd love to know the reasons why Republicans should vote for that in the lame-duck session, rather than wait until they have more senators a few weeks from now.

Biden in charge. Isn't this the dude that got like 5% of the vote in the iowa primary?

Yeah, but that's about the best thing on his resume, Po. Would more Dem primary votes have indicated he was better prepared?

(Great Piece, Clarice.)

[centralcal]

Good morning, Soylent. Nice to see you here.

[Clarice]

Thanks guys.

CC, Soylent? Where?

[BR]

Commenter at 8:15 am - fascinating. Much food for thought. Tku.

Perhaps add responsibilities, too. It's that wonderful "act" in III I'm thinking about. One doesn't want to restrict and it's difficult to define for the greatest good of the greatest number, planetwide. But somehow, act in wisdom is the concept I'm thinking of.

[hit and run]

Jack:
Does this bode evil intents for a run in 2012 - a real insiders coup only matched by the Soviets in the 1950's.

While I really don't think so.........

[DebinNC]

Biden's elevation reinforces speculation that Obama can't handle the job, Obama is cracking up, and the number of people Obama trusts would fit in an electric car.

[Pofarmer]

Yeah, but that's about the best thing on his resume, Po. Would more Dem primary votes have indicated he was better prepared?

All I'm sayin, is that here we have this guy, who couldn't garner any votes on his own, couldn't garner a crowd in MO, at least, of more than a few hundred during the campaign, and now we're told that he's the bright light running things? The people saw through this moron, and now we're being told to eat our shit sandwich and smile about it. Also, what does it say about Barry, that he thinks someone so unpopular with the electorate, even the Dim electorate, is his strong horse?

[Clarice]

Nevermind,cc, Now I see it.

[Extraneus]

Heh. Understand, just thinking that whoever the Dem electorate thinks is their worst candidate isn't necessarily a disqualifier regarding that person's wisdom, executive abilities, motives, love of country, etc., since those aren't the qualifications for Dem candidates. Since Biden wouldn't have gotten far in the Republican primary, either, your point is more than valid.

[Pofarmer]

ya know, it's almost as if Biden has convinced Obama of Joe's own greatness. Which makes Obama quite a sucker. Did Joe play Obama to get the VP nod? And, is he still at it?

[Extraneus]

To be fair, he probably knows a lot more great-sounding buzz words than Obama, Axelrod, Plouffe, or even Michelle does.

[Janet]

I think Joe got the VP position because he is willing to go along. "You need someone to trumpet any idiot idea...I'm your man."
No original ideas & no character.

[hit and run]

To be fair, he probably knows a lot more great-sounding buzz words than Obama, Axelrod, Plouffe, or even Michelle does.

I think you're selling Michelle really short there. She's chock full of great sounding biting sound bites.

Our souls are broken in the nation.

For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.

Every woman I know is struggling to keep her head above water.

My life's gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.

Barack will demand that we shed our cynicism, and he will never allow us to go back to our uninvolved lives.

We live in a country that's just downright mean.

We're a nation of cynics, sloths and complacents.

America has declined over my lifetime.

And that's just off the top of my head...

[hit and run]

How did I forget...

Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more

[DebinNC]

More MO...

"Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics.”

deign: to condescend reluctantly and with a strong sense of the affront to one's superiority that is involved (Websters)

[Frau Wirtschaft]

"the Boudica of the Beltway"
That made me smile, narciso.

Don't forget that in 2004, Hillary! and Mr. Gravitas Biden *both* attended the European socialist democrats' meeting in Norway. The purpose was to coordinate worldwide goals:
"Norway's Labour Party is joining other European social democrats in linking up with the Democrats in the US. The goal is to be prepared with common strategies if a majority of them on both sides of the Atlantic come back to power.

A group of European social democrats, led by former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, met last week with several top Democratic politicians and party officials. They included US senators Hilary Clinton and Joseph Biden.

They also had meetings with Ron Klain of presidential candidate Wesley Clark's campaign, and Stan Greenberg, former US President Bill Clinton's campaign strategist in 1992.

On the agenda was European concern over current US foreign policy and the effects of globalization.

Espen Barth Eide, who led the Norwegian delegation, said the group met "understanding" that "economic globalization must be accompanied by political globalization."
(Afterposten newspaper link no longer works)

Well, at least Smart Diplomacy is now in place and global economic conditions have changed!

[torabora]

Sheriff Joe is the world's only Stupid Genius.

[Larry Sheldon]

One begins to wonder, when one is tired and sleepy if the Won has lost the confidence of the controller with his hand up the puppets butt. And one further wonders if the Won has been instructed to bring Biden up-to-speed for the Won's early decision to return to his first love, that of teaching perversion of the Constitution, Communism, and Keynesian (not Kenyan) echonomics.

I'm guessing that the announcement is nigh, so that Pelosi will be the new VP to do the hand-in-butt chores to keep Biden on-key.

[Larry Sheldon]

"echonomics" is not a typo.

[srp]

The abdication to Bill C at the press conference was weird, but using the Veep for all kinds of stuff is just the way the modern presidency seems to work (at least since Mondale significantly upgraded the job). I don't think there was anything procedurally wrong with Bush making use of Cheney (who would not have fared well in a primary campaign himself), so deploying Biden isn't per se a sign of O losing his grip.

Of course, Biden is an idiot, so a "rule of reason" analysis leads back to gripless O. But them again, if the alternative is O doing this stuff himself...

[NotPC]

Obama: "The buck has been outsourced to Biden. It no longer reaches here!"

[Micha Elyi]

"At least now we know who runs the plantation."-Neo

When a Senator, "Plugs" Biden had proudly reminded one and all that the state he represented, Delaware, is historically part of Dixie.

[larry]

And that's just off the top of my head... Are you sure M O said that, Hit? (rimshot)

[lyle]

"Nobody messes with Joe."