Senator Joe Biden, campaigning for president in 2007, does not mince his words* regarding a president’s constitutional war powers. He is absolutely unwavering in his insistence that if a president goes to war with a country in the absence of an imminent threat to the US – even worse, without congressional approval – this is an impeachable offense:
* (Although, it could be said that he never minces his words regarding anything. It’s quite entertaining sometimes.)
Too bad this was just a brain burp on CNN’s part.
This is from a CNN article today reporting on the ongoing efforts by Democrats to help Bill Owens overcome the surging candidacy of conservative Doug Hoffman. Even though alleged Republican Dede Scozzafava is now campaigning for the Democrat, Hoffman currently holds a five-point lead over Owens in the latest Siena College poll.
The CNN article also relates this howler from our esteemed Former Vice President (emphasis added):
"We aren't asking you to switch your party," Biden said at a rally for Democrat Bill Owens in Watertown, New York Monday morning. "We are just saying join us in teaching a lesson to those absolutists who say no dissent is permitted within your own party."
Tell us, Former Vice President Biden, about how famous the Democrats are for permitting dissent within their party in recent years.
...or else Joe "Loose Cannon" Biden is being an unbelievably irresponsible panicmonger. He may genuinely feel that an overabundance of caution is necessary, but when the Vice President of the United States speaks like this in a public setting, people are going to be alarmed.Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. and implied schools should be shuttered as the swine flu outbreak spread to 11 states and forced school closures amid confirmation of the first U.S. death.
"I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said when asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.
Biden made his comments during a brief interview on NBC's "Today" show during an interview with Matt Lauer.
"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. "
The vice president also implied that schools should be closed as the threat of swine flu increases.
"If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom it's a different thing."
After the interview, co-host Meredith Vieira and NBC's Chuck Todd discussed Biden's statement, wondering if the vice president really had intended to caution the American public to stay off public transportation and airplanes. They noted his comments seemed to contradict public statements by other high-ranked White House officials.
You can see a video of the exchange at the above link.As it often the case nowadays, it was questioning by ABC’s Jake Tapper that put Gibbs on the spot.
JAKE TAPPER: My other question has to do with remarks Vice-President Biden made this morning on television. Representatives of the travel industry have accused the Vice-President of coming close to fear-mongering because of his comments. I’m wondering if you wanted to clarify, or correct or apologize for the remarks that he made.
ROBERT GIBBS: Well, what the Vice-President meant to say [at this point, some laughter in the press corps can be heard] is that again, many members have said in the last few days: if you feel sick, if you’re exhibiting symptoms, flu-like symptoms: coughing, sneezing, runny nose, that you should take precautions, that you should limit your travel. And I just think he just: what he said and what he meant to say.TAPPER: With all due respect, and I sympathize with you trying to explain the Vice-President’s comments, but that’s not even remotely close to what he said. He was asked about if a member of his family were to –
GIBBS: I understand what he said, and I’m telling you what he meant to say, which was that –
At this point, the loud and unrestrained laughter of the press corps can be heard.
GIBBS: — if someone is experiencing symptoms, you heard the President last night, if someone is feeling sick, exhibiting symptoms of being sick, then they should take all necessary precautions. Obviously if anybody was unduly alarmed for whatever reason, we would apologize for that and I hope that my remarks and remarks of people at the CDC and Secretary Napolitano have appropriately cleared up what he meant to say.
VP Joe, you really should get some help. You're starting to make Walter Mitty blush.Republican strategist Karl Rove called Vice President Biden a "liar" on Thursday, dramatically escalating a feud between Biden and aides to former President George W. Bush over Biden's claims to have rebuked Bush in private meetings.That reminds me of the time that I stared Biden right in the eye and said, "Mr. Vice President, you are a liar!" He didn't even try to deny it.
"I hate to say this, but he's a serial exaggerator," Rove told FOX News. "If I was being unkind I would say liar. But it is a habit he ought to drop."
Rove added: "You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the Vice President of the United States."
Biden's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, although Biden spokesman Jay Carney told Fox on Wednesday: "The vice president stands by his remarks."
Carney was referring to two controversial assertions by Biden, the latest coming Tuesday during an interview on CNN.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden began, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
The exchange is purely "fictional," said Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser in the White House.
"It didn't happen," Rove, a FOX News contributor and former Bush adviser, told Megyn Kelly in an interview taped for "On The Record." "It's his imagination; it's a made-up, fictional world.
"He ought to get out of it and get back to reality," Rove added. "He's making this up out of whole cloth."
Rove also said few presidents would spend a long time with anybody in the Oval Office, particularly "with all due respect, a blowhard like Joe Biden."
Rove's skepticism was echoed by a variety of other Bush aides, including former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Candida Wolff.
Vice President Joe Biden, under fire from Karl Rove and other former Bush administration officials for bragging that he ridiculed George W. Bush face to face in the White House, today claimed he had also once defeated President Bush in arm wrestling.
“We were all alone in the Oval Office, as we often were,” said Mr. Biden, then a U.S. Senator. “I had just dissed old Georgie with another of my famous presidential put-downs, when he challenged me to arm wrestle…the truth from my lips to God’s ears, I swear. So we get down on our knees next to that little coffee table between the sofas. And I get the grip on him, you know, the old Biden clutch grip. It was over in seconds.”
The vice president said he had promised that he would never publicize the humiliating incident, “but now that Bush says he owes the Obama administration his silence, I feel at liberty to tell the story…you know, since he’s not going comment on it, and no one believes Karl Rove or Dick Cheney anyway.”
