![\"biden1\"](\"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/biden1.jpg\" "\\"biden1\\"")
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To take stock of what Vice President Joseph Biden said last weekend, noted by people who note things and thus\u00c2\u00a0trending toward being heralded to “Gaffe” status:<\/p>\n
#1:\u00c2\u00a0 “We misread how bad the economy was.” #2:\u00c2\u00a0 BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else. Considering the way this plays in the world — much of it assumes Israel is America’s 51st state anyway, which includes\u00c2\u00a0headlines that include “Go Ahead Bibi:\u00c2\u00a0 Drop the Bomb<\/em>“, and considering the dangers of this statement in relation to the hoped for “regime change” in Iran, President Obama had to walk this one back<\/a>. But these less than political smooth statements are at least more meaningful than Biden’s “Hide!\u00c2\u00a0 Hide!\u00c2\u00a0 Hide!” <\/a>reaction to the Avian Flu, which you just\u00c2\u00a0go ahead and chalk up to “just one of those things.”\u00c2\u00a0 They bear down on policy decisions.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course,\u00c2\u00a0if you want to flicker around to personality political calculations, you might go down the route\u00c2\u00a0of the “Biden versus Clinton” game and assume Biden is getting air-time,\u00c2\u00a0despite the fact that he will say something,\u00c2\u00a0to undermine Hillary Clinton’s 2012 Presidential Bid<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to play that game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To take stock of what Vice President Joseph Biden said last weekend, noted by people who note things and thus\u00c2\u00a0trending toward being heralded to “Gaffe” status: #1:\u00c2\u00a0 “We misread how bad the economy was.” This, I think, is extrapulated to the “Nobody could have predicted” syndrome.\u00c2\u00a0 A politician should know never to say that, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4278,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions\/4278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis, I think, is extrapulated to the “Nobody could have predicted” syndrome.\u00c2\u00a0 A politician should know never to say that, at least, as when “nobody could have predicted”, one can immediately google and find the “everybody” who predicted it.
\nThis floats past fairly easily, even if it was plastered in giant type at the top of “Huffington Post” on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 The Politico-Economic picture remains the same.\u00c2\u00a0 In four years, Obama will be up for re-election.\u00c2\u00a0 The classic question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?<\/em>“\u00c2\u00a0 will determine his re-election chances.\u00c2\u00a0 If you under-estimated the severity of the economic picture, now is the time to say so — six months in instead of four years in.<\/p>\n
\nSTEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?
\nBIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They’re entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.\u00c2\u00a0 What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nPerhaps with forked tongue?\u00c2\u00a0 The message is out there, I’d guess.<\/p>\n