Joe Biden is Back

Other than showing up to do his rabid squirrel act at campaign rallies, Biden’s only job is to wait for the ice cream truck.

The Obama campaign WANTS to start this discussion amongst their supporters. They truly want 101% of black voters actually believing that a President Romney really DOES want to bring back slavery.

By having Biden do their dirty work they can have their cake and eat it to. The seed of the idea gets planted, while in the national press they can laugh it off and say “oh, dear, there goes that wacky Joe again!”

It took me three years to figure this out.

If we cannot understand what the heck the Democrats are talking about, it's because we are not supposed to. Furthermore, they do not care if we do, or not. The message isn't for us.

Romney explained it yesterday
"...shatter and divide the elcctorate and try to pick up 51% of the pieces."

Unfortunately for this country, The Obama Strategy just might work.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about something you said at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on April 19th. Here it is, and let’s come back and talk about it.

(Videotape, April 19, 2007)

SEN. BIDEN: To paraphrase a line from the Bible, you reap what you sow. And ladies and gentlemen, we are reaping what we have sown, the seeds of destruction and the seeds of malcontention that we’ve sown. I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, ladies and gentlemen, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what’s gone down in Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn’t happen accidentally, all of these things. Since 1994, from the Gingrich revolution to Karl Rove and President Bush, we have wallowed, wallowed in the politics of polarization.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Explain that logic. How does Virginia Tech or Don Imus, relate to the Gingrich revolution or Karl Rove or George Bush?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, by the way, they’re, they’re, they’re not directly responsible for any of those things, but the atmosphere—look, think of it this way, how many shock jocks did we have in 1970s and the 1980s? What happened when we concluded that when Newt Gingrich said the way to win the House is to burn the House down? When all of the sudden we went from—I served, for example, I got here and a lot of old segregationists were still here. Yet, we did not engage in arguments about motive, we engaged in arguments about policy. And all of a sudden, in the, in the mid ‘90s, it became “If you’re not with us, you’re not a good Christian. If you’re not with us, you’re not moral. If you share a view, you are unpatriotic.” The whole nature of the debate changed. You had senators talking about the president of the United States on the floor calling him Bubba. And we wonder why that doesn’t percolate through the entire society.

MR. RUSSERT: But Virginia Tech? How does that relate?

SEN. BIDEN: Oh, well, what Virginia Tech is about is the debate that come out—came out afterwards, where you had this whole debate about, you know, if everybody had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened and so on. I mean, it wasn’t—it didn’t produce that kid, that kid was mentally deranged. And it didn’t produce that.

But think of the—all the other things, Tim. I mean, you cannot engage—a leader cannot engage—the leaders of the country cannot engage in this kind of, of, of talk and the way we characterize people and the hatefulness of it and think it doesn’t permeate society. As I said earlier, you know, the famous line of Pat Moynihan, we’ve defined decency down. I mean, look, what we’ve defined down is, is civility in this country. I mean, things that you could say today in the public square, you would have been pilloried for saying in 1975. It matters.

MR. RUSSERT: You said this back in September of 1987 as sort of a diagnosis about yourself, “I exaggerate when I’m angry.”

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah. That’s true. I did. And look, and that, and that was ‘87. And, and, and the question was related directly to a guy asking me about where I stood in my class. And I was like—I was an immature 42-year-old guy who was acting like “Your mother wears combat boots” in response. I thought he was challenging my—and I just went out at it, and I didn’t know where the heck I ended up in my class. I honest to God had no—I wonder how many Americans would say, “Tell me exactly where you ended up in your class,” and they could give you a number. And I just went out, and I was angry. But that had—I mean, I have, a lot’s happened in my life since then. And hopefully I’m a much—I’ve controlled that, that, that anger. I mean, the joke was I had two craniotomies, and, you know, because I had two major aneurysms, and they had to take the top of my head off a couple times. And as one wag in Delaware said, writing about it, the reason they had to go in a second time is they couldn’t find a brain the first time. Well, I hope when they were in the second time, they cut the temper cord...

MR. RUSSERT: So the exaggeration and the anger is gone?

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah, it is gone, because all you’ve got to do is lie in a hospital bed for five months, them telling you you’re not going to make it and—to give you a new appreciation for the lack of urgency in anything other than life-and-death issues.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18381961/ns/meet_the_press/t/mtp-transcript-april/

MR. RUSSERT: Meet the Candidates 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden right after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we’re back, talking to Senator Joe Biden.

I was up on your Web site looking at some of your campaign positions and promises.

SEN. BIDEN: I, I should go on that site.

MR. RUSSERT: But, senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare looming. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare is now 40 million people. It’s going to be 80 million in 15 years. Would you consider looking at those programs, age of eligibility...

SEN. BIDEN: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: ...cost of living, put it all on the table.

SEN. BIDEN: The answer is absolutely. You have to. You know, it’s—one of the things that my, you know, the political advisers say to me is, “Whoa, don’t touch that third”—look, the American people aren’t stupid. It’s a real simple proposition. We have to do—you and I were talking about Bob Dole earlier. I was one of five people—I was the junior guy in the meeting with Bob Dole and George Mitchell when we put Social Security on the right path for 60 years. I’ll never forget what Bob Dole said. After we reached an agreement about gradually raising the retirement age, etc., he said, “Look, here’s the deal, we all put our foot in the boat one at a time.” And he kicked—he stepped like he was stepping into a boat. “And we all make the following deal. If any one of the challengers running against the incumbent Democrat or Republicans attack us on this point, we’ll all stay together.” That’s the kind of leadership that is needed. Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.

MR. RUSSERT: Everything.

SEN. BIDEN: Everything. You’ve got to.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk—turn to abortion. The ban on partial-birth abortions or late-term abortions, you supported that ban.

SEN. BIDEN: I did and I do.

MR. RUSSERT: And the Supreme Court came and basically upheld that ban...

SEN. BIDEN: That’s right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and you criticized the Supreme Court.

SEN. BIDEN: I’ll tell you why I criticized the Supreme Court. They upheld the ban, and then they engaged in what we lawyers call dicta that is frightening. You had an intellectually dishonest rationale for an honest justification for upholding the ban, and that was this: They went further, and then they, in the language associated with the decision said, by the way, they blurred whether there is the first trimester and third trimester in how much—I know this is going to sound arcane to the listeners—but whether or not they blurred the distinction between the government’s role in being involved in the first day and the ninth month. They blurred the role in terms of whether or not there is—they became paternalistic, talking about the court could consider the impact on the mother and keeping her from making a mistake. This is all code for saying, “Here we come to undo Roe v. Wade.” And it went on to say, by the way, that the life of the mother was, in fact, permissible exception, and it went on to say that even—that any woman could challenge, even if her health is at risk, could come back to the court to challenge that. So the bottom line here is, what they did is not so much the decision, the actual outcome of the decision, it’s what attended the decision that portends for a real hard move on the court to undo the right of privacy. That’s what I’m criticizing about the court’s decision.

MR. RUSSERT: You have changed your position on abortion. When you came to the Senate, you believed that Roe v. Wade was not correctly decided and that you also believed a the right of abortion was not secured by the Constitution. Why did you change your mind?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot. Look, Tim, I’m a practicing Catholic, and it is the biggest dilemma for me in terms of comporting my, my religious and cultural views with my political responsibility. And the decision that I have come to is Roe v. Wade is as close to we’re going to be able to get as a society that incorporates the general lines of debate within Christendom, Judaism and other faiths, where it basically says there is a sliding scale relating to viability of a fetus. We can argue about whether or not it’s precisely set, whether it’s right or wrong in terms of its three months as opposed to two months, but it does encompass, I’ve come to conclude, the only means by which, in this heterogeneous society of ours, we can read some general accommodation on what is a religiously charged and a publicly-charged debate. That’s the, that’s the decision I’ve come to.

Even within our own church, there’s been debates about life, you know, from, from “Summa Theologica,” Aquinas, and 40 days to quickening and right to, you know, you know, Pious IX, animated fetus doctrine and so on. So this—the, the, the decision’s the closest thing politically to what has been the philosophic divisions existent among the major confessional faiths in our country. And that’s why, I think, that’s why I’ve come to the conclusion some long time ago, over 25 years ago, that is the—it is the template which makes the most sense.

MR. RUSSERT: Are you still opposed to public funding for abortion?

SEN. BIDEN: I still am opposed to public funding for abortion, and the reason I am is, again, it goes to the question of whether or not you’re going to impose a view to support something that is not a guaranteed right but an affirmative action to promote.

MR. RUSSERT: Were you yourself—do you believe that life begins at conception?

SEN. BIDEN: I am prepared to accept my church’s view. I think it’s a tough one. I have to accept that on faith. That is a tough, tough decision to me. But there is a point relatively soon where viability—it’s clear to me when there’s viability, meaning the ability to survive outside the womb, that I don’t have any doubt. That’s why the late-term abortion, and that’s why I continue, like your old boss Pat Moynihan, shared the same view, he was very pro-choice is—to use the jargon. But he, like me, believed that you have this notion of abortion in the last month, where there’s clearly viability. And if you make that judgment based upon the nature of the child’s health, that is not a good basis for a societal decision. Only the mother’s health should be—dictate the outcome then. Otherwise, you, you yield to the side of the—of, of, of the fetus, which is almost full term.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me bring you back to November of ‘03. You were asked this question. “Do you believe gay marriage is inevitable?” Biden: “I’m not sure. I think probably it is.”

SEN. BIDEN: Well, I think it probably is because social mores change. But look, Tim, I don’t think the government can dictate the definition of marriage to religious institutions. But government does have an obligation to guarantee that everybody has, every individual is free of discrimination. And there’s a distinction. You and I talk—I shouldn’t say this—I think we did—talked about Meacham’s book, the “American Gospel.” And I, anticipating you asking me this, I wrote a quote from his, from his book that I think sums it up. He says, “The American gospel is that religion shapes the life of the nation without strangling it.” That’s where I think—that’s how we have to view these very difficult decisions. I think government should not be able to dictate to religions the definition of marriage, but I think, on a civil side, government has the obligation to strip away every vestige of discrimination as to what individuals are able to do in terms of their personal conduct.

MR. RUSSERT: So New Hampshire coming out in favor of civil unions is OK by you?

SEN. BIDEN: Yes. Yes, it is.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the debate on Thursday night, and Brian Williams’ question of you and your answer. Here it is.

(Videotape, Thursday)

BRIAN WILLIAMS: (From MSNBC Democratic Candidates Debate) Senator Biden, words have, in the past, gotten you in trouble, words that were borrowed and words that some found hateful. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times said, “In addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, Biden is a gaffe machine.” Can you reassure the voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, senator?

SEN. BIDEN: Yes.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Was that hard?

SEN. BIDEN: No, not at all.

MR. RUSSERT: You have gotten in trouble with your language. When you said that Barack Obama was clean and articulate, you apologized for it. Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote this: “Loose Lips Sink. The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. His Achilles’ heel is his mouth.” Do you have a problem?

SEN. BIDEN: No. I don’t have a—look, I have met with more world leaders and as many world leaders as anybody who sits in government today. They’ve never had a problem understanding me. Milosevic had no problem understanding me when I said, “I think you’re a war criminal. I’m going to do everything in power to see you’re tried as one.” The prime minister of, of Great Britain’s never misunderstood me. All the way back to Deng Xiaoping, he never understood—misunderstood me. Look, this is a rough game, man. This is a very rough game. My referring to Barack as articulate, it was a mistake. But guess what, if you look at—I will not mention the national press person who just—in saying that the problem with Barack’s appearance last—on the debate was he wasn’t articulate enough. I mean look, give me—give me a break. The average American out there understands—look, let me put it another way. The good thing about being around a long time is people have a basis upon which to judge you. And I didn’t find any serious person in the civil rights community, because of my long history and long support for civil rights, thinking that I was trying to insult Barack Obama in any way. I didn’t find anyone suggesting that anything else I have said goes to the heart of whether or not my record is, is being undercut by what I’ve stated. But it is true. It is true that my candor sometimes get me in trouble.

MR. RUSSERT: And so does, sometimes, your embellishment. You go back to ‘88 when you withdrew as a candidate, this is the way E.J., E.J. Dionne wrote it: “Mr. Biden’s trouble began with the revelation that he had used, without attribution, long portions of a moving address by the British Labor Party leader, Neil Kinnock.” “It emerged” “he had also used passages from the speeches of Robert” “Kennedy” “Hubert Humphrey.” “It was revealed that Mr. Biden had been disciplined as a first-year law student for using portions of a law review article in a paper without proper attribution” and “was hit again by a videotape of” his “appearance in New Hampshire in which he misstated several facts about his academic career.” That was a problem.

SEN. BIDEN: No, it was.

MR. RUSSERT: And you learned from it?

SEN. BIDEN: I did. It was 20 years ago, and I learned from it. The good for me is, and the bad news, people have had 20 years to judge since then whether or not I am the man they see or I am what I was characterized as being 20 years ago. I learned a lot from it, and, let me tell you, it was a bitter way to learn it, but I learned a lot.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about something you said at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on April 19th. Here it is, and let’s come back and talk about it.

(Videotape, April 19, 2007)

SEN. BIDEN: To paraphrase a line from the Bible, you reap what you sow. And ladies and gentlemen, we are reaping what we have sown, the seeds of destruction and the seeds of malcontention that we’ve sown. I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, ladies and gentlemen, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what’s gone down in Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn’t happen accidentally, all of these things. Since 1994, from the Gingrich revolution to Karl Rove and President Bush, we have wallowed, wallowed in the politics of polarization.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Explain that logic. How does Virginia Tech or Don Imus, relate to the Gingrich revolution or Karl Rove or George Bush?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, by the way, they’re, they’re, they’re not directly responsible for any of those things, but the atmosphere—look, think of it this way, how many shock jocks did we have in 1970s and the 1980s? What happened when we concluded that when Newt Gingrich said the way to win the House is to burn the House down? When all of the sudden we went from—I served, for example, I got here and a lot of old segregationists were still here. Yet, we did not engage in arguments about motive, we engaged in arguments about policy. And all of a sudden, in the, in the mid ‘90s, it became “If you’re not with us, you’re not a good Christian. If you’re not with us, you’re not moral. If you share a view, you are unpatriotic.” The whole nature of the debate changed. You had senators talking about the president of the United States on the floor calling him Bubba. And we wonder why that doesn’t percolate through the entire society.

MR. RUSSERT: But Virginia Tech? How does that relate?

SEN. BIDEN: Oh, well, what Virginia Tech is about is the debate that come out—came out afterwards, where you had this whole debate about, you know, if everybody had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened and so on. I mean, it wasn’t—it didn’t produce that kid, that kid was mentally deranged. And it didn’t produce that.

But think of the—all the other things, Tim. I mean, you cannot engage—a leader cannot engage—the leaders of the country cannot engage in this kind of, of, of talk and the way we characterize people and the hatefulness of it and think it doesn’t permeate society. As I said earlier, you know, the famous line of Pat Moynihan, we’ve defined decency down. I mean, look, what we’ve defined down is, is civility in this country. I mean, things that you could say today in the public square, you would have been pilloried for saying in 1975. It matters.

MR. RUSSERT: You said this back in September of 1987 as sort of a diagnosis about yourself, “I exaggerate when I’m angry.”

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah. That’s true. I did. And look, and that, and that was ‘87. And, and, and the question was related directly to a guy asking me about where I stood in my class. And I was like—I was an immature 42-year-old guy who was acting like “Your mother wears combat boots” in response. I thought he was challenging my—and I just went out at it, and I didn’t know where the heck I ended up in my class. I honest to God had no—I wonder how many Americans would say, “Tell me exactly where you ended up in your class,” and they could give you a number. And I just went out, and I was angry. But that had—I mean, I have, a lot’s happened in my life since then. And hopefully I’m a much—I’ve controlled that, that, that anger. I mean, the joke was I had two craniotomies, and, you know, because I had two major aneurysms, and they had to take the top of my head off a couple times. And as one wag in Delaware said, writing about it, the reason they had to go in a second time is they couldn’t find a brain the first time. Well, I hope when they were in the second time, they cut the temper cord...

MR. RUSSERT: So the exaggeration and the anger is gone?

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah, it is gone, because all you’ve got to do is lie in a hospital bed for five months, them telling you you’re not going to make it and—to give you a new appreciation for the lack of urgency in anything other than life-and-death issues.

MR. RUSSERT: Joe Biden said that he needed to raise $40 million to be viable in this campaign. Thus far you’ve raised about $2 million. You’re 2 percent in the polls. Are you viable?

SEN. BIDEN: Yes. I think what I said was that I needed to be able to get through the campaign. That’s what I had to do, not to start the campaign. I believe to get through the first—and I have to admit to you, I admit I thought a lot more about how to be president than how to get elected president, but I think I can raise sufficient money to make me viable in the first four contests, and I think that’s going to be where the decision is made about who the next nominee’s going to be.

MR. RUSSERT: You said in the debate whoever wishes for Hillary is making a big mistake on the Republican side. You seem to be almost a quasi-endorsement. Are you interested in being vice president?

SEN. BIDEN: No. I will not be vice president under any circumstances.

MR. RUSSERT: How about secretary of state?

SEN. BIDEN: Secretary of state’s a different thing, but I don’t—I won’t do that either. Look, the bottom line is, I really resent it when they go after her or other Democrats the way they do. I think it’s—I think part of this is being fair. And the idea that Hillary Clinton is somehow not capable of dealing with—or any one of those candidates, or at least four of the candidates—not being able to deal with Rudy Giuliani I find—or others—I, I find not very accurate.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Joe Biden, we thank you for joining us...