Anybody catch Biden dismiss Kerry's withdrawal plan on "Real Time" ?

[saracat]

with Bill Maher? The plagiarist has struck again. He "re announced" he is running for Prez and denounced Kerry has not having a "plan" and then went on to quote all of Kerry's diplomatic solutions as his own saying they had not been mentioned! What a jerk. And to make matters worse, he sounded good spouting Kerry's plan and no one corrected him! But I don't think Biden has a chance in hell. His votes are solidly big business. He is a corporate whore. His vote for the Bankruptcy Bill alone is unforgivable.

[Mass]

1. I did not, but we were talking about it.

I am not surprised. Biden needs to be the center of attention. He has a bad case of egotism. (May be he can give lessons to Kerry?).

This said, there are two threads on GD and GDP saying he was great. Difficult to believe. For me, he is a slightly improved version of JoeMomentum. May be this has to do with the name Joe?

:shrug:

[fedupinBushcountry]

2. Oh, please no

my husband's name is Joe. Big difference though as one who served he backs Kerry 100%.

[karynnj]

4. This looked to me to be a staged show of support

Very few of those user names were familiar. I do question the sanity of the person who thought he would be good because he is tall and handsome, which he may have been years ago - but more troubling is that this is a reason to support a candidate.

[karynnj]

3. What a jerk - Does Maher put out transcripts?

If he said Kerry didn't say it posting things side by side, should work to show that Biden is just a liar and plagerist. That he said Kerry didn't have a plan is disgusting when Kerry just submitted legislation detailing it and had the op-ed.

Kerry's ideas on the diplomatic solution are not even that different from things he said in Oct, 2005. To some extent, the ideas are common sense, so it's possible that Biden independently wanted the same thing. (The last time I heard him was a CFR speech on CSPAN - I think weeks before Kerry's speech - those were not his ideas then.)

If Biden runs, this is the type of thing that will be brought up to destroy his chances (deservedly so) I think he should be called on this.

[beachmom]

5. Yes, he does put out transcripts.

I taped the show, but haven't watched it yet (now I don't want to, sigh). I'm liking that show less and less because everyone on it is hopelessly ignorant about what Democrats are doing. A few weeks ago I was watching it, and I finally just stopped it and deleted it, because ALL they did was bash Democrats, but did so based on their utter lack of knowledge of what Democrats have been doing. I really can't STAND Joe Biden, unless he's bashing the * administration. He's arrogant and not a nice person at all. And he's plagiarizing again.

[jillan]

6. You know - I didn't look at it that way.

I believe what Biden said was
That the problem with John's plan is that it didn't go far enough.

Biden asked the question if we were willing to trade in a dictator for complete chaos.
Biden explained that civil war would not stop at the borders of Iraq, it would go into that whole section of the mideast. Iran with Iraq v Israel - how would Israel react? A complete war in that region of the world. Biden did agree with Kerry about enforcing a deadline for an Iraqi gov't.
Biden had the opportunity to go into alot more detail than Kerry was able to do on Hardball or Blitzer with questions been thrown at him. Biden was allowed to talk, and encouraged to go into more detail by Ben Affleck.

Biden opened my mind to the reality of the region, and I thought he did an excellent job.
I did not see it as dissing Kerry - and I am very sensitive to Kerry dissing.

[ProSense]

7. Biden is playing games

How can he justify criticizing Kerry's call for withdrawal by equating Kerry's ultimatum with chaos? Did he miss any of Kerry speeches assessing the entire situation from a historical and visionary perspective?


"The Path Forward"
http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=247764&

Real Security in the Post 9/11 World
http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=249580&

“Security in a Dangerous World”
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2133


The deadline doesn't negate Kerry's understanding and vision for dealing with Iraq and the region in terms of diplomacy and the rest. It puts the onus on the Iraqis to get their shit together.

[jillan]

10. He wasn't talking about Kerry when he said that.

He was talking about what we have done to Iraq.
We got rid of Saddam, and now the country is in huge turmoil.
It was a criticism of the bsh administration, not Kerry.

Biden's main concern last nite was how the civil war was going to spill out across the borders. He was blasting Bsh for not meeting with all of the leaders in that region, working on
"a plan for peace".

His discussion had nothing to do with Kerry. He just said that Kerry's plan didn't go far enough.
And Biden explained why.

Both Kerry and Biden have more insight into the problems in that country then all the pigs running this country together. Which is why we have to get more dems elected in November. Can you imagine Biden and Kerry be able to sit down together and discuss their feelings on the situation in the mideast, and then put their plans into action? Both of these great men have been on the foreign relations committee for many, many years, both have alot of insight. And both of them are speaking out about how things need to be turned around NOW before it gets worse.

To me, this isn't who is smarter about Iraq - to me it's not about "politics" -
it's about what I read on the front page of my paper everyday, what I see on tv, the net.
About all of the young men and women who have died, and will die because of what we did.
It's about my nephew that's in Fallujah, a friend's relative whose head was blown off over there. If Biden wants to expand on Kerry's plan... that's fine with me. We broke it, we need to fix it. And the dems are going to be the ones who will fix it.

[ProSense]

11. I know, but it's politics if he said diplomacy had not been mentioned

I know the Democrats are all on board to withdraw from Iraq. Here is what Biden called for in his gradual withdrawal plan:

Biden referred to "respected voices on military matters" like Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who called for a troop pullout on Thursday. But Biden said he does not support bringing the troops home now. Rather, he said, 50,000 U.S. troops should leave Iraq by the end of 2006 and "a significant number" of the remaining 100,000 should leave in 2007.

Snip...

"Does anyone here support using American troops to fight a civil war against the Sunnis on behalf of the Kurds and Shiites?" he asked. "I don't and I doubt many Americans would. But if we fail to forge a political consensus soon, that is what our troops will be dragged into."

Biden called the United States' large military presence in Iraq "both necessary and increasingly counterproductive."

"Right now, our troops are the only guarantor against chaos," he said, but the military presence "is also, increasingly, part of the problem."

more...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/IraqCoverage/wireStory?id=1335363&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

It's like he wants it both ways, but he doesn't want American troops in the middle of a civil war. "Soon" is now, they are in the middle of a civil war. His gradual strategy---leaving most of the troops in Iraq until the end of 2007---will not work. The situation had gotten and is getting worse.

[jillan]

13. I really don't want this to be a Biden v Kerry discussion

I have alot of respect for both men, but this a direct quote from Kerry

"
If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end"
more-
"
To increase the pressure on Iraq's leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads.

We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity"

Kerry is not talking about immediate pullout either. Year end, and re-deployment, like Murtha said.

Kerry and Biden do sit together in committee, my hope is that they are working together for an exit strategy.

Do you ever fear that we would leave Iraq, and things would get worse, and we'd have to go back??

I don't know what the answer is.

[ProSense]

14. The plans are clear.

I know that even Murtha wasn't calling for an immediate withdrawal. The details in each of these strategies differs. Bush is still the key here, and while things are progressively worsening, Kerry's ultimatum is the right approach to get things moving in the right direction; to get American troops out as quickly as possible with pressure on the Iraqis to form a government and take responsibility for their country. What happens next if the Iraqis choose to fight a civil war? Then the entire effort becomes containment and diplomacy. And that has been discussed.

The situation now was what Bush was warned about before he invaded Iraq.

[ginnyinWI]

18. Well, he was right on stage when JK gave that big speech

at NYU--on Iraq--during the campaign. And after the speech he can be heard on mic coming up to Kerry on stage and saying something like "atta boy--you nailed it!" and clapping him on the back. Sheesh.

[sandnsea]

9. Except Kerry has talked about that, forever

He has talked about a summit of all the regional players, it was part of his plan in 2004. He said that they had a stake in the outcome of Iraq. He warned about civil war spilling over into other countries, very specifically. That's always been a central theme of his Iraq policy, concern for the region. And I don't think JK would ever cavalierly say "let 'em have at it" either, even while acknowledging our troops can't be held solely responsible to stop civil war. I thought he made some good points, but they weren't anything that hasn't been said by alot of Democrats for a long time now.

[saracat]

12. Yes, he did say that but Kerry did go into all the diplomatic

contingencies that Biden outlined as part of "John's plan didn't go far enough". Every word about the big picture and the diplomatic effort had already been spoken by Kerry. I object to Biden acting as though he is adding to the conversation when he is merely parroting Kerry and claiming he is expanding with his own ideas!

[sandnsea]

8. He said Bush was pulling out troops

That's when he really lost me. If he thinks the Bushie's plan to get out of Iraq, he still doesn't understand what they're about. That's the one I really couldn't believe he said.

The Kerry stuff, that's just Joe Biden egotistical politics. I could almost forgive that if he weren't so wrong on so many other things anyway.

[JI7]

15. he may sound tough because he is loud and arrogant

but nobody has really challenged him face to face. i would like to see what he does if confronted with his votes and other things.

[jillan]

16. He will be challenged.

He has come out and said that he's running;
so after November, things are going to get real interesting.

What I don't get, with Kerry being out there, Feingold, and even Biden,
how Hillary enjoys the lead. She is the quiet one in all of this.

[Inuca]

17. Why Hillary?

I think she deserves soem admiration for guts & fortitude. Beyond that... IMHO it's just Bill's charisma spilling over + the excitment of even considering seriously for the first time the possibility of a woman president. And of course the media, something exciting to talk about. The problem is that I do not know whether all this can eventually create a momentum that may become unstopable. I AM excited at the idea of a women president, and I do not dislike her, at least not much, but I hope that it won't happen. She is probably smart to keep quiet for quite a while longer, I think.

[beachmom]

19. I watched it last night, and I was NOT impressed with Biden

I think he misspoke when he said John's plan "didn't go far enough". That would infer that he wanted troops out on April 15th, the opposite of what he followed up to say. I have studied a lot about Iraq and I can tell you that he didn't say anything new that some astute reporter hasn't pointed out before. Although he didn't say it in a provocative way, in the end, this is what he was saying: Kerry's plan will lead to a regional conflict and $150 a barrel oil. Biden wants this war to continue forever. He can criticize * all he wants, but I hear a guy firmly in the honest neoconservative corner. Ready to blast * on mistakes, but NOT willing to come forward with a REAL solution and bring our troops home. He is paralyzed with fear and unable to put out a plan of action.

I had watched Kerry's Senate floor speech right before, and he has put SO much thought into this, that Biden's pathetic speech (which Bill Maher and Ben Affleck, total ignoramuses that they are were GRATEFUL to hear saying they "learned a lot". For crying out loud, do some research, idiots!) amounts to whining and "I just don't know what to do!" offering no real solutions.

I'm not saying Biden doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to Iraq -- he's the ranking member of the SFRC, but it was terrible having him basically back *'s plan over Kerry's. I would LOVE to hear Kerry and Biden have a productive, thought provoking debate about Iraq. It would be a sight to see, and be in complete contrast to the stupid sloganeering that has ruined political discourse in this country.

In fact, I wish Kerry would be on Bill Maher's panel (heck, now Max Cleland and Joe Biden have been on, why not?). This would be the perfect format for him -- debating -- but also having funny parts so that the real JK could shine right through. And put a RW hack like the one from last night, and watch JK obliterate the guy in his cool manner. JMO.


Edited to add: Biden DID say that * had no plan, but by not backing Kerry, I think this amounts to backing *.