Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Hur Memo and the Tragedy of Joe Biden
The American Conservative ^ | 5/01/24 | Philip Jeffery

Posted on 05/05/2024 5:34:41 PM PDT by Libloather

**SNIP**

But that isn’t what made the Hur report so poignant, so interesting—so funny. It’s something neither party nor much of the news coverage mentioned at all; the biggest missing detail from the stories elected officials told about the Hur report isn’t any legal technicality in the decision not to prosecute Biden for holding on to classified documents. It’s what Biden held on to, and why.

The centerpiece of the investigation is a lengthy memo Biden wrote in 2009 to then-president Barack Obama, which investigators found—along with classified materials used to draft it—tucked in a cardboard box in Biden’s garage in Delaware last year. It was an artifact from what Biden at one time believed (and perhaps, Hur surmised, still believes) to be the most important moment of his political career.

In fall 2009, less than a year into Obama’s presidency, the cabinet had to decide just how far it was willing to depart from its predecessor’s (by then) highly unpopular foreign policy. At issue was “the surge”: a request for 40,000 additional troops on the ground in Afghanistan. The defense establishment was, of course, in favor, assuring the president that where naked military force had failed, military force under the guise of “counterinsurgency/COIN” and “nation-building” would succeed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in favor, as were Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen, and just about everyone else. The only person who dissented, who made it a discussion at all, the person everyone else rolled their eyes at and dismissed as a crank, was the vice president.

He was, by their standards, a doe-eyed peacenik; he still supported increasing troop levels, but only by half the number the Pentagon wanted. He called the military lobbying for the surge “f****** outrageous.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2009; afghanistan; biden; brandon; classified; criminal; documents; donatefreerepublic; good; hur; hurreport; jeffery; joebiden; memo; philipjeffery; runawayjoe; sick; surrenderjunkies; thesurge; withdrawal
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-37 next last
And Hussein knew all about it.
1 posted on 05/05/2024 5:34:41 PM PDT by Libloather
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Libloather

bttt


2 posted on 05/05/2024 5:42:50 PM PDT by linMcHlp
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

The “tragedy” of The Big Guy? More like outrage!


3 posted on 05/05/2024 5:46:28 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Proudly Clinging To My Guns And My Religion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

and the fact that the relevant statutes all mention “intent,”


Some do...and some don’t.


4 posted on 05/05/2024 5:52:20 PM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

wo men sit across a table. One is just there to listen. The other, an 80-something who never got around to retirement, speaks in a halting voice of his memories and the possessions that keep them straight. He wanders aloud through his son’s death; his attendance at funerals in since-dissolved countries; his hopes across his long, long career, and the pinnacle of that career, his assurance that history will forgive him. Through splintered memories the old man discusses his parents, his education, his aspirations fulfilled and unfulfilled, and so much that cannot be pieced back together. No one asked him about these topics; they simply emerge.

It’s a scene fit for the stage. Joe Biden’s five-hour interview with special counsel Robert Hur, told piecemeal in the latter’s almost 400-page report, transcends its intended genre. And while it had its moment in the news earlier this spring, this tragicomic character study of America’s oldest president risks being buried under far less interesting stories. The news coverage of the report never quite captured it, but all the irony and futility of Biden’s long political career converged in this conversation and its aftermath, as if Willy Loman himself were stalking the halls of the White House.


It’s a scene fit for the stage. And there will be a stage production of this someday funded by a liberal.


5 posted on 05/05/2024 5:59:54 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

81 million ballots.

And maybe more next time.


6 posted on 05/05/2024 6:01:43 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (It's not "Quiet Quitting" -- it's "Going Galt".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

The only “tragedy” about the roostersucker is that he is president,


7 posted on 05/05/2024 6:27:43 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

So, Biden might have been correct once in his career. Bling squirrel, acorns, etc. Joe Biden has been consistently corrupt for over about 50 years.


8 posted on 05/05/2024 6:29:15 PM PDT by marktwain (The Republic is at risk. Resistance to the Democratic Party is Resistance to Tyranny. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

He stole from SCIFs for years.

And we didn’t need a Hur report to tell us that. He was interviewed by journalists with classified papers all over his desk, and they wrote about it contemporaneously, and he was not President.


9 posted on 05/05/2024 6:29:44 PM PDT by OakOak (Misinformation Campaign on your TV)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Libloather
“I don’t want history to associate me with the adoption of a COIN [strategy].”

Don't worry, Joe. You'll be remembered for far worse.
10 posted on 05/05/2024 6:33:53 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

The whore report,


11 posted on 05/05/2024 6:38:56 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather
It's a sign of Biden's delusions that he thought Obama would ever listen to him.

I know that some people on here think that Obama is a Satanic Iago who is the origin of all the current dysfunction.

But the reality is that Obama was a Diversity-Presenting continuation of the Bush/Clinton Regime. With the same Swamp advisors, and following the same Swamp policies.


12 posted on 05/05/2024 6:42:23 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative
The “tragedy” of The Big Guy? More like outrage!

The tragedy is the poopy Morning Pantz.

Doc Jill is saddened daily.

13 posted on 05/05/2024 6:42:50 PM PDT by kiryandil (FR Democrat Party operatives! Rally in defense of your Colombian cartel stooge Merchan!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

It is NOT the tragedy of Sloe Joe - it is the tragedy of EVERY citizen of the USA!

Nobody cares about Sloe Joe and The Hoe!

If Sloe Joe and The Hoe cared about America and the American people, we’d be in a different place and savoring a healthy, FRee Republic!

That is PRECISELY why we MUST elect Donald J. Trump and a conservative House and Senate on November 5th!

DJT LOVES America and the American people!

That is all I need to know!


14 posted on 05/05/2024 6:46:07 PM PDT by Taxman ((SAVE AMERICA! VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2024! SAVE AMERICA!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Libloather

Besides telling the pathetic tale of Biden’s fragile, confused mind, this is a well written article, reminiscent of a long ago era when people like Buckley, Safire, Kirk, and Kristol (I) used to write such things.


15 posted on 05/05/2024 6:51:48 PM PDT by nwrep
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marktwain

Actually they were all wrong. Maybe a fully staffed surge would have been better if those troops would have been sent sent to kill bad guys and break their stuff, but as usual they half assed it for the wrong reasons so we’ll never know.


16 posted on 05/05/2024 7:04:48 PM PDT by VTenigma (Conspiracy theory is the new "spoiler alert")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: VTenigma

You can’t kill people into compliance with a Regime they hate.


17 posted on 05/05/2024 7:06:59 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: nwrep

This may be the writer. He seems to have written for many publications on a wide variety of topics:

https://dc.hillsdale.edu/Profiles/Philip-Jeffery/


18 posted on 05/05/2024 7:17:43 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

81 million ballots.

And maybe more next time.

>>>> Actually 81 million votes, probably only about 60 million ballots.


19 posted on 05/05/2024 7:27:46 PM PDT by kvanbrunt2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: nwrep

I totally agree. This is a phenomenal article. Not just the argument but also the quality of the writing.


20 posted on 05/05/2024 7:28:03 PM PDT by edwinland
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-37 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson