The Weekly Bidenism

With Dodger Joe Biden headed to Canada to woo vital Canadian voters for the Democratic Party, and his motorcade having their fourth accident in a year (why do they let him drive?), you’d think we wouldn’t have anything to write about. . . you’d be wrong. Because like rust, Joe’s mouth never sleeps, and this week, his mouth was talking about Iraq. Get ready for. . . The Weekly Bidenism.

This week, Prognosticator Joe went on Larry King to explain why things will look good for the Democrats in November. Apparently Joe thinks Obama’s “greatest achievement” will see them through. What is Obama’s greatest achievement? Iraq.

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. . . I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences."

That’s Obama’s “greatest achievement”? Ok, let’s look at the two things Biden says he’s achieved. First, bringing home the troops. As with the Nobel Prize, this isn’t an achievement yet, it’s a promise of an achievement. Those don’t count. Moreover, despite the claim that these troops would be home by the end of the summer, Joe later downgraded this certainty to “likely” on Sunday’s Meet the Press.

Also, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that this will leave around 60,000 troops in Iraq. Compare that to Obama’s original promise that he would remove ALL troops from Iraq by August 2010, and this “achievement” starts to sound a little fake. But hey, what’s 60,000 troops among friends!

At least Joe is right that Iraqis have put down their guns and are using the political process to settle their differences. Unless you count the daily bombings that continue to kill hundreds of Iraqis each month, including, for example, twin blasts on February 5 that killed 40 pilgrims, or the three explosions at Shiite shrines yesterday, or the fact that December was the deadliest month in Iraq in almost a year (on the worst day, December 8, 121 people were killed in a series of car bombs). But perhaps we are being too critical, after all, daily bombings are just part of the political process in every country, right?

What’s more interesting, is that Joe went on to claim that the Iraq war hasn’t been worth “it’s horrible price,” which he blames on the war being “mishandled from the outset” and on the United States taking “its eye off the ball” by invading Iraq instead of finishing the fight in Afghanistan. Does Joe have a point? I don’t know, let’s ask an expert:

The year was 1998 when Sen. Joe Biden first called for an invasion of Iraq. Said ChickenHawk Biden when U.N. inspectors told him they had no evidence that Saddam had WMDs:

"As long as Saddam’s at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction."

"The only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end up having to start it alone."

But the evil President Clinton wouldn’t listen to Joe’s bellicose dreams. No, Joe would have to wait until after September 11, 2001 for his hopes to be fulfilled. With the run up to the war just starting, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden again called for war:

"One thing is clear: These weapons must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam must be dislodged from power."

When others cautioned Joe that there was no actual proof that these “weapons” existed, Joe fired back:

"If we wait for the danger from Saddam to become clear, it could be too late."

Added Joe about Saddam Hussein:

"[He is] a long term threat and a short term threat to our nation security [and an] extreme danger to the world."

When Joe was asked as late as 2007 if he stood by those comments, he said he did: “That’s right, and I was correct about that.”

Bellicose Joe then warned us that we must be prepared for the long term:

"I do not believe this is a rush to war. I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur. We must be clear with the American people that we are committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after."

He then shepherded the war resolution through the Senate.

But that was before it became more popular to oppose the war. Soon, he and Obama were calling the war immoral, and they insisted that we never should have invaded in the first place. When others suggested the surge, Biden screamed that we should cut the country into three parts and run away. Indeed, Biden not only insisted that the surge “would fail,” he vehemently opposed it, assuring us the surge will “worsen sectarian violence.”

Of course, the surge worked, and Obama won the election. Suddenly, Biden was the surge’s biggest fan. And now he’s claiming that the effects of the 2007 surge are somehow Obama’s greatest achievement. Think about that. . . Obama’s greatest achievement was something Bush did in 2007.

You know what? Maybe for once, Biden’s right?