Meet The Press: Senator Joe Biden Will Not Vote To Cut Funding For Iraq Occupation
By Logan Murphy Saturday Sep 08, 2007 11:03am
This morning on Meet The Press, Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden walks in lockstep with right-wing talking points on Iraq funding. When asked by host Tim Russert if he would vote to cut off funding for Iraq if President Bush refuses to accept a withdrawal date, Biden moves directly to the "cutting off funding means you don't support the troops" mentality pulled straight from the pages of the RNC playbook. Instead of speaking the truth, that it means appropriating funds to begin a safe and smart withdrawal from the country, not abandoning out troops, Biden instead says he won't vote to cut off funding and chooses to chastise Democrats who support it.
It's infuriating to say the least to see Biden falling for the White House framing-- not one single Democrat in Congress wants to leave our soldiers stranded in the middle of the desert with no food, water, ammo or protection--and cutting off Bush's funding would not do that--and Senator Biden should know better.
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Biden's big push in this interview is sending MRAPS (which should have been the vehicle of choice from the beginning) to the troops. The problem is, he's willing to betray the American people and cave to President Bush and his minority party in order to get them. This mentality is what has led to our prolonged presence in Iraq, the fatally flawed surge strategy and the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops and countless Iraqi citizens. Senator Biden, you can put all the protective equipment into the spending bill you want, but you then must stand firm with the troops and the American people and fight for a timetable to get them out of harm's way and bring them home.
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Another Bush Dog identified. Put him down.
Today's "Get Fuzzy" must have been targeted at Biden...
http://tinyurl.com/3cselw
Between Biden and my own state's Amy Klobuchar, who needs to vote for Republicans anymore?
Bend over America...
Dems are a parody of themselves. Spineless in every way.
what a duma** he is. He says one smart thing and ruins the rest.
Joe reminded me of his MBNA pimping days with his performance.
Frist?
I wonder if there is some secret study out there that is telling these guys that there is some cover in enabling shrub. I thought if nothing else, polls self-preserved first. Anybody know of anything?
So who can the netroots stand up to run against him the next time his seat is up?
Would be a hard victory to get, but he at least needs to be pushed to the max by the people to remind him that he's not that charming, and that he is in fact a tool.
There goes his chance at the WH.....not like he had much of one...
Yeah, it's a combination of being a cowardly toad, as well as having been inside the Beltway so long that you no longer perceive the reality of young soldiers and civilians suffering and dying, but instead see the world as an endless series of "deals" to be made with other politicos. Guys like Biden need to be retired so that people who remember real-life experiences can get in there and make some decisions.
I am beginning to think that the Democrats want this war to continue at least until the Presidential '08 elections. The Iraq War is an albatross around the neck of every Republican running for office.
What is shameful is that Democrats would avoid doing the right thing and allow more of our troops to die needlessly, all for political calculations.
There is not a member of Congress of either party that doesn't know that the idea of cutting off spending for a war can be done without putting our troops in peril. They tout the "I can't defund the war because I support the troops" mantra because they think it plays well with the press and the voters.
Supporting the troops means bringing them home from this mindless war.
Joe Biden talks out both sides of his mouth.
Very disappointing. He is not a dumb man, just another politician.
This week is going to be very difficult for end the war people.
Would some Democrat please step forward and lead us out of this.
I dont see why he thinks he is in any way relevant on the political scene.
This man has serious issues in making decisions and sticking to them.
Someone please tell him that he has no chance in hell to be president.
Biden is right. You need more than a majority to cut off funding. All voting to cut off funding does is delay funding for the troops. Hey. I wish the GOP wouldn't take hostage the lives of our soldiers either, in order to prolong this disaster, but that's the way it is.
Biden knows he has no chance in hell of becoming prez. It's predetermined by all these assclowns who the ACTUAL candidates will be for BOTH parties.
Alright. Fund humvee armor specifically. Fund specific things to keep the troops going AND NOTHING ELSE. Why is there no targeted funding? Why is that so fucking hard? It ISN'T.
Doesn't the MSM label him a "second-tier" candidate (alone with Richardson and Dodd)?
Maybe we need a "fourth-tier."
Maybe he should attend the Rethuglican debates.
I remember during the 2004 primaries when he threw out the first ball at a Fischer Cats (the Nashua NH local semi-pro baseball team) game. He was roundly booed. Not all of the boos came from Bushies.
wmholt @ 8:
This could be true. We all pretty much disagree with people like Biden but my issue is WHY aren't they cutting off the funding? I just don't get it. Any other ideas?
Two small words sum up Biden at this point: He's finished!
This guy still doesn't "get" that you can't be out of alignment with the majority of the american people and still contend that you've got what it takes to be President.
We've had 6 very long years of Chimp not listening to the american people one iota - or Congress for that matter. The people will soon repudiate Joe Biden for this major faux pas.
Let's see...is Biden trying the A. Specter role/image of being on both sides of the fence?
What a looser.
The reality is that the Dems don't have the votes to get troop reduction policies passed. The choice then becomes, how do we convince enough Republicans to vote with us so that we can get a reduction of troops passed? The answer requires the Dems to work with some of the more moderate Repulbicans. To get what we all want...redeployment, there has to be some compromise with a few Republicans...it sucks but that is the political reality at this point. Between now and 2008(when Dems gain more control of the House/Senate/White House), the only way to have any chance of getting our kids out of the line of fire in Iraq is to work with Moderate Republicans. Translation: don't be so hard on the Democratic Leadership as their hands are tied at this time.
"Support the Troops" means stopping this form of genocide by sending them to their doom playing monkey in the middle of an ongoing civil war.
Biden's has no balls!!!
I agree with some of the earlier posts. It's amazing how congress is too damn shy to call bush out and stop funding. This is what congress does. Anyone who has taken history about the US or read up a tiny bit on the 3 branches of the government knows this. Congress has purse and can cut it off from the president if they dont approve of a war. This wasnt never intended to be an 'anti troops' process. But a legal means for bringing the troops home.
Bush needs to be hung, pure and simple. He is recklessly keeping the troops out in harms way and crying wolf if we try to move them out. And why congress fails to grasp this?
Me thinks some democrats are profiting in this in some way...same as how republicans let Bush do anything just so Republicans could control more of the country (look at how they fucked that up and royally, internationally, internally, economically and militarily).
Hawkeye @ 18:
"Their hands are tied" in some respects; however, the people are screaming for them to bring immediate impeachment proceedings and their hands seem to be tied there as well. What the hell is going on?
No way I was ever going to vote for that blowhard anyway. Useless beyond belief.
CensoredFan @ 12:
I've read that he is angling to be Hillary's SecState. Good grief, what a disaster that would be.
Hawkeye @ 18:
Pleeeeeease identify for me/us,...WHO are the moderate Repig's???
JC @ 21:
JC @ 21:
"War profiteering" on both sides of the aisle, that's what's going on - right out of our pockets and into theirs! They're all complicit and criminal in all of this.
MBNA must make some good coin off of this continued occupation.
As Major General Smedley Butler writes:
War is a racket.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Somehow you can't apply common sense to politicians. Any chance that Dennis K can end up grabbing the most votes? He's so far the only guy whose saying the right things up to this point.
Hawkeye @ 18:
meanwhile the Dem's could make as much noise about the Obstructionist Republicans as the Repug's did when the Dems tried to hold debate over the issues when they were in the minority. I'm getting sick of people using the dems lack of votes as an excuse for them to do nothing at all.
rahm_emanuel_is_a_tool @ 24:
Hillary's "popularity" is repuke spin. The human mind is like a roll of paper towels waiting to be saturated with rumor.
Perhaps someone can correct me if I'm wrong but Biden repeatedly stated that he would need a veto proof majority in the Senate (of 67) to defund the war. This is not true. The Democrat majority simply would have to not pass any war budget. There would be nothing to veto.
Biden needs to be called to task for this misstatement.
CensoredFan @ 12:
God, I pray it's not Hill (but am afraid it is). The Thug powers that be seem a bit more undecided.
I'd be tempted to stay home. Buit obviously won't. Kinda like the choice of having my foot run over by a compact car or a truck.
sounds like Biden (R-MBNA) is running for President in the wrong party...
He's just Biden time.
I couldn't watch to the end.
I started throwing up in my mouth a little.
Does he think he was answering the question? What the hell does funding the Cougar have to do with getting troops out of Iraq? What kind of either/or bullshit is that?
"Either:
(a) you vote to keep the troops in Iraq with Billions of dollars worth of new armor plated vehicles that we should have supplied to them three or four years ago, or
(b) you are sending them out on their last patrols with no food, a canteen full of water laced with salmonella, and backup vehicles made by Tonka and Matchbox."
What the fuck is going on in Washington right now? Is there some kind of mass hysteria happening?
Hawkeye @ 18:
This may be true, but then why don't the Dems pass it without an overwhelming majority, send it to the President, and have him veto it? Won't HE be the one to look bad?
Pssst....eh, Joe...If they weren't there...They wouldn't need the MRAPS.
Moron.
ted @ 31:
Agreed. Those of us "in the know" are fully aware of this fact, but the majority of
the general public is uninformed/uneducated...too lazy to keep up w/facts instead
rely upon "spin" as truth.
Horrible.
Would you defund the Iraq war?
Look at the new tank I invented!
War and fear is good for the economy, for prosperity, for the children, for freedom!!!
"I am beginning to think that the Democrats want this war to continue at least until the Presidential ‘08 elections."
Of course they do. The US economy is riding on the success or failure of our venture in the ME. It's a resource/survival war and we're not going to sit by and let China or Russia or whoever gain control of the oil first. Both sides know this. YOU and I are NOT supposed to know this. We're supposed to think it is about "freedom" and "democracy". I don't know how Kucinich's plan to leave Iraq would play out. It seems to come down to whether or not Americans would choose to continue the killing in Iraq so they could drive their SUVs, or if they would be willing to make major sacrifices/changes in their way of living.
Biden understands that if the war is over, his tank doesn't have anything to do.
"Could you imagine how many more of our young people's lives would be saved if we opened up three more fronts, tripling the use of MY tank that only I could appropriate funds for? That's leadersheep!"
Biden
What inane non-logic. Thousands more civilians and troops die to fund equipment. Biden proposes the snake keep eating it's own tail til the end of time.
Fucking moron is right.
senoritchy @ 40:
Also Joe, it doesn't cost billions to retro fit the under armored humvees. You could have affected and protected more military personel for the money through proper prioritization of funding.
This is why much, most, of the Democratic leadership is bankrupt and useless. Cowardly, shortsighted and foolish. They meekly use the neocon framing on issues.
These are the same Dems who are urging we don't mount primary challenges to those Dems who continue to enable Bush and the neocons.
Start challenging them in the primaries. It's the only solution left.
New slogan song for the Iraq war and Biden's (go nowhere) campaign, "Until The Twelfth of Never".
Curtilingus @ 45:
Thank you.
With respect to Biden and almost ALL others in "our" Congress, it seems that Mark Twain's
quote is most appropriate:
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I
repeat myself."
Assuming then that Joe Biden knows that it is untruthful for him to say that a veto proof majority (67) is needed to defund the war, when in reality only a simple majority (51) is needed, he wants to pretend that the Democrats have no power to stop the war, when they really DO have the power. Why would he do that? It makes no sense (unless the Democrats like Biden really want the war to continue and they can then simply sit on the sidelines and blame the Republicans for things that go wrong). Or is it simply the Biden's simple don't have the courage of their conviction or, even worse, absolutely have no conviction whatsoever.
I saw the interview and I kept screaming if you want to make the troops safe, Joe, bring them home.
To hell with him!
someone posted in atrios comments that pat buchanan said this morning that "iran will happen in the next two weeks'...but i dont even see him listed as being on anyn of the sunday shows.
ted, Even worse does he have a financial interest in continuing the war. he was basically bragging about the size of the contract that the voted on. I'm sure it did more for him than bring jobs to his district.
ted @ 50:
As someone said earlier.."He is just Biden his time"...waiting until Nov. 08 and hoping for
some sort of important Cabinet appointment.
A couple interesting photos of Bush kissing Terrorist ass.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/09/bush-and-abu-ri.html
ted @ 50:
Remedy: Challenge all "circular seats" like Biden's with Progressives with the keenest intent and purpose we've ever had. Cut off these aging umbilical cords in congress and the senate.
biden has more "hair" than the last time i saw him.
Doogie, a Cabinet appointment by Hillary or by Romney?
There are really only two reasonable choices among the Democrats for president. The rest will either not withdraw at all, or slowly trickle out and leave bases in place.
Biden, for all his teeth, is a mainstream democrat with nothing new to offer.
Good bye then, biden.
Odd how the source of the stench was once handled according to the constitution with impeachment.
Instead of throwing out the rotting chicken in the fridge, the SOURCE of the stench, we just keep thinking about how to keep replacing refrigerators.
wakeup @ 41:
Yes, our involvement in the ME has little to do with Iraq by itself. It’s about the neighborhood and our strategic interests in that neighborhood. Not just oil, but economies based on oil-reserve currency, supply and competition from China/Russia/India, etc.
And we blew it.
We made no friends by creating millions of Iraqi refugees, killing half million Iraqi citizens, destroying their infrastructure, and stealing their oil. The solution to this fiasco is not to “surge” some more. The debate about whether to bring the troops home or stay for victory is ridiculous. The debate should be about how to how to rectify the damage done, both to Iraq and the US military & economy. Funding the troops is no answer. I don’t know what the best course of action should be to rectify our mistakes, but the first step in any event should be to stop the hemorrhaging. Stop the killing, stop the theft on both sides, and stop the saber rattling. These things only lead to more of the same.
Those who say leaving Iraq would lead to chaos are right. But mostly for US. We WILL lose most influence in the region, which would jeopardize our oil-supply and the Dollar hegemony on oil-trade. But to keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last 5 years will realize that that outcome only faster.
"Sit!
Good Biden.
Now roll over."
said George Bush.
crazylove @ 60:
I don't want to open the fridge or move it. How bout if we just get a new HOUSE?
Albatross @ 2:
Thank you, I thought I was the only Minnesotan disillusioned by Klobuchar. I wish Betty McCallum would challenge her when the time comes.
Okay, this pisses me off. Is Biden really trying to play like he doesn't understand that the president *has* to take the funding bill Congress gives him? Sure Bush can veto til he's blue in the face but unless he accepts some bill the war ends by default when the funding runs out. You don't need a f**king veto-proof majority, you just need to keep sending him a new version of the same bill - with a timetable - each time he vetos. Ultimately Bush is the one that has to blink.
This war should have effectively ended the first time one of these funding requests came up to after Democrats controlled Congress. At this point the Democrats are effectively conspiring with the Republicans to keep the war going while whining the whole time about how there's nothing they can do.
[Oh and if you're so concerned that the money you do give is used to pay for appropriate armor for the troops then write that into the damn bill. It's not a binary proposition, you can vote to allocate money for armor without voting to continue the war]
Not fit to be President. The only means to end the war now, is to stop funding it.
Is anyone really surprised? The Democrats are no better then the Republicans.
Bye-bye Biden.
We're saving lives by creating machinery for war? In this preemptive war, now a civil war we created no lives are being saved. Save American troop's lives. Bring them home now.
This idiot has proven his incompetence for years and years. If you've been paying attention to politics at all, why would you give any credence to Biden now? Really.
By the way, he is the quintessential, prototypical Washington insider. He IS part of the problem.
I guess our government is more like a coalition government now where the two parties share power, but dissent is not tolerated, only staged by each party to give the perception of a dynamic government. This guarantees the power will be kept in the coalition(the democratic republican coalition).
Kinda like an oligopoly, but with government instead of business.
crazylove @ 13:
That funding has already been approved, he admitted that. What he didn't go on to say was the pentagon won't spend the buy the equipment, so what can we do?
Every American wants to provide the best equipment for our troops, their families are crying and praying it. We can provide all the money in the world to buy the equipment the troops need but they are not going to get any. The pentagon feels that money is too valuable to spend on our young people.
The only option we have is to cut off the troops by never bringing a funding bill up for a vote.
geez biden, you talked a good game for awhile there. then you saw your bid for the candidacy really was going down the tubes so in a last effort to revive those hopes, you fell in lockstep with bush. you threw your hat in the ring of bush's game. as such, you showed your true colors. win at any cost. Please, step to the back of the line. you've not only lost your bid, but in the process of doing what you did, you also lost your self respect and the constituency that still supported you. please, sir, to the back of the line.
Feck him then.
What do you expect from a guy who was instrumental in the passing of the horrible reagan Just Say No drug laws, that have overwhelmed prisons, and pushed America into becoming one of the top nations to imprison her youth.
Joe Biden isn't know by the moniker "Slow Joe Biden" for nothing.
(I bet he's the Democrat whose been on the Sunday talk shows more than any other single politician, or it sure seems that way.)
Curtilingus @ 63:
Let's raze the neighborhood first, so we have plenty of room to build an even bigger house, a HUGE house that will cost trillions of dollars before it's all over.
I'd like to see Biden take that Cougar for a little Telephone Pole high ride and ask him what he thinks of this war after he lands. I doubt those young soldiers were as happy to be in Iraq as this $cumbag would like us to think. I hate these warmongering blow hards, I hate them.
Smedley Butler @ 27:
Every Iraqi that survives gets a free credit card with 0 % introductory rate!
* (0 % introductory rate good until initial purchase, at which time rate increases to 21%.)
This war will go on for decades, no matter who you vote for. The war profiteering Merchants of Death demand it.
Pro-war candidate Joe Biden.
Joe Lieberman's body double.
If only those poor Africans in Darfur were a little lighter in shade and had oil under their ground to steal. We would be pumping billions into Africa to "save" them.
But then again, with Bush's intervention even more of them would suffer so perhaps it's best their is no oil in Darfur to liberate.
Who wants to bet we'll see those "super Humvees" patrolling America's mean streets in the near future, keeping it save for Bank America and MBNA. As the financial divide here increases, so will the need for citizen control.
These new vehicles may protect our troops better, but not as good as bringing them home. We must stop being occupiers!
It is simply stunning to read the comments of so-called liberals when they claim that the Democrats cannot cut off the funding because they do not have enough votes to do so. As Congressman Kucinich has tried to point out, apparently to no avail, when the next vote comes up for funding, the Democrats can choose not to vote for the funding at all, Period. This means, of course, that the funding for the occupation cannot continue because no votes were taken to vote, not simply for an amount, but for ANY amount. Kucinich has also said that there is already enough money in the pipeline to provide for the welfare of the troops so that they will not be left out in the cold. So it is extremely disingenuous for Biden to imply that the troops will not be taken care of if the funds were to be finally cut off from the occupation.
Why do some of us who want us out of Iraq actually believe that cutting off funding for the war will result in U.S. troop withdrawal? It won't. The notion that cutiing off funding for the war is the only way to end the war is a false notion. The only way to get us out of Iraq and get our troops home is to impeach Bush and Cheney and get another person in to the White House as our commander-in-chief.
The funding for this war is a sham. There IS no funding. It's almost entirely being run up on our big fat national credit card for our children and grandchildren to pay off, and will reasonably result in the economic meltdown of the United States.
Reconsider the thinking that cutting off funding will do anything at all. The commander-in-chiefs have to be replaced.
There are really only 2 possibilities left here:
1) GW used the NSA wire taps to get so much dirt on the Dems that they have no choice or lose their jobs/go to jail or...
2) They are all complicit in this fiasco and we are being played for fools while they run their coup.
Pick one, either way we are screwed.
#52--grover nerdquist: Pasty Pat Buchanan was on with John McLaughlin this morning on PBS. I was reading the newspapers and was only half listening. Buchanan may also have been on MSNBC with that dizzy blonde, Alex Witless. Isn't she the one with the Sunday morning gig? I don't watch MSNBC but back when I did she was always on the weekends.