Biden, the Master Gasbag Imagine if Palin had made any of these gaffes. By Jonah Goldberg Yes, this morning everyone will be talking about last nightâs presidential debate. But I canât get over Thursdayâs vice presidential contest. It was the most revealing, and depressing, event of the entire campaign because it showed how irredeemably fraudulent Americaâs political class is and how superficial the swing voters who will decide this election are. Going into the debate, the conventional wisdom was that Sarah Palin would be woefully outgunned by Joe Biden. A self-touted foreign policy expert and constitutional law professor, Biden joined the Senate some time after the Cretaceous period but well before bell-bottoms went out of style As we know, the conventional wisdom was wrong. Palin wasnât stellar. But she crushed those low expectations, salvaged her political career and turned herself back into an asset for the McCain campaign. But what about Biden? Overwhelmingly, the professional political class proclaimed that he blew Palin away on âspecificsâ and âknowledgeâ and âseriousness.â The New York Times said Biden avoided making any gaffes, âwhile showing a clear grasp of the big picture and the details.â The Wall Street Journalâs Gerald Seib proclaimed on ABCâs âThis Weekâ that Biden avoided any âverbal excesses or rhetorical flourishes.â The Associated Press called Biden the âmaster senator ... rattling off foreign policy details with ease.â Thatâs true in a sense. Biden was at ease; he easily rattled off a string of falsehoods and gasbaggeries. According to the master senator, the U.S. and France âkicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.â Afterward, according to Biden, âI said and Barack said, âMove NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you donât ... Hezbollah will control it.ââ Perhaps Biden meant to say the U.S. and France kicked Syria out of Lebanon. But even this is woefully glib. Syria never fully abandoned Lebanon. And there was no âvacuumâ for Hezbollah to fill. The terrorist group was already firmly in control of southern Lebanon and part of the government. No one remembers Biden and Obama fighting for the stupidly impossible NATO move either. Biden insisted itâs âjust simply not trueâ that Obama has said heâd âsit down with (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad,â even though in the primaries Biden criticized Obama for exactly that. Biden bragged about how he and Obama have focused on Pakistan, insisting that âPakistanâs weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean.â Um, no. Their missiles couldnât get halfway there. Biden suggested he spearheaded the effort to save âtens of thousands of lives in Bosnia.â He was actually more of a bit player. The constitutional law professor mocked Dick Cheney because the vice president âdoesnât realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president. Thatâs the executive branch.â Wrong. Article I defines the Legislature, Article II the executive branch. Both define the role of the VP. He flatly said that McCain voted with Obama on a tax hike. He didnât. He said McCainâs health-care plan amounted to a tax hike. It doesnât. Biden said we âmustâ drill for oil, but that ainât how heâs voted. He said heâs for clean coal, but just this month he passionately told a voter, âWeâre not supporting clean coal,â and vowed âno coal plants here in America.â The scrapper from Scranton boasted about bonding with the common folks at a restaurant thatâs been closed for two decades. Palin had her own problems. She failed to answer direct questions directly. She offered up some obviously canned one-liners. But hereâs the difference. Palin is supposed to be everything Biden isnât, according to liberal pundits and mainstream reporters alike. For weeks theyâve been saying sheâs ill-prepared, uninformed and lacks the requisite experience. But that criticism is also an excuse of sorts. Biden has no excuse. Heâs been in the majors for nearly 40 years, and yet he sounds like a bizarro-world Chauncey Gardiner. The famous simpleton from Jerzy Kosinskiâs âBeing Thereâ (played by Peter Sellers in the film) offered terse aphorisms that were utterly devoid of specific content but nonetheless seemed to describe reality accurately. Biden is the reverse: He offers a logorrheic farrago of âspecificsâ that have no connection to our corner of the space-time continuum. In short, he just makes stuff up. But he does it with passionate, self-important intensity. Heâs like a politician in a movie with a perfect grasp of a world that doesnât exist. Heâs not an expert, he just plays one on TV. No one seems to care. Biden convinced the focus groups heâs an expert. The media, with a few exceptions, let it all slide. But imagine if Palin had made any of these gaffes. It would be incontrovertible proof that her critics are right. Palin âlostâ because sheâs bad at being a dishonest politician. Biden won because he is, after all, a âmaster senator.â http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjU0ZWU3YTcxODcyMDA1NzBjZmE1ZDg0NjJhOTFkMTE=
Yeah who would have thought, a politician lying. The real puzzle to me are the people who continue paying attention to them, let alone believing.