The Lionel-Kuby-McCain "Biden Fiasco"
Air America has two hosts who don't strike me as being the brightest light bulbs in their ballroom. The more hapless of the two is Lionel, and the other is Ron Kuby. Sadly they are not in a class with today's Thom Hartmann, or with two of Air America's stars of the past, Mike Malloy and Randi Rhodes, who nowadays can be heard instead on Nova M Radio.
This was clearly shown yesterday in their reactions to a statement by J. Biden, the Democratic VP hopeful, who, speaking at a private fundraiser, speculated that not far into his presidency, should he get it, B. Obama will be tested by an international crisis, upon which the inner steel in him will be clearly seen.
Immediately those ultra-reactionaries, his adversaries, J. McCain and S. Palin, both pounced on this statement, as they do on any remark tossed to them by the Democrats that they think offers the least ray of hope to reverse -- legitimately -- the continuing trend in favor of the Obama-Biden ticket in these last several days of the 2008 campaign. They took Biden to be saying that Obama's election to the post would cause an immediate international crisis.
I heard the statement, and so did my wife, and to us that wasn't what Biden's statement meant at all. Instead J. Biden was merely stating the obvious. As befits a country that has become accustomed to seeing itself as the only superpower and therefore the policeman of the world, it will undoubtedly be faced with yet another crisis after the election, and next year, too, and the year after that and in all the years to come, given the perpetual restlessness and incessant changes wrought by an ever-growing and ever-ambitious world population that is literally reproducing and consuming itself out of house, home, field, and planet.
That would be true no matter who is the U.S. President. Does anyone think that an Obama presidency will guarantee the total absence of crises? So Biden was saying that not if but when problems crop up, as they surely will, on top of and often due to the numerous hideous ones that the next President will inherit, and particularly if they came about as a result of the deeds and statements of other leaders overseas, the American populace who had voted for Obama to be the Prez would find him equal to the task.
Biden did not in any way, to our hearing and our understanding, say that these situations would be caused by Obama's election, and it was a measure of the stupidity of the McCain camp that they should've so eagerly seized on this statement and go off running with it, like dogs with a piece of red meat laced with poison -- for them. They should've at least asked themselves first if Biden would make so much a point of something that would be so sure to shoot him and his running mate in the foot. Biden has been accused of many things, but a lack of intelligence has never been one of them.
Yet Lionel and Kuby were appalled by Biden's statement, and Kuby said that it came at the worst possible time, and hysterically he equated it with "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," when actually it was no such thing, but merely an interesting way for the Delaware senator to bring attention to one of his running mate's inner qualities that may not have been apparent to some, notwithstanding the fact that Obama's steel has already been demonstrated time after time by not one but two extremely grueling political battles that he was been waging for close to two years now, when any lesser figures would long since have wilted badly, yet he is still going as strong as ever..
Kuby, and probably Lionel, too -- I was so disgusted and appalled by their attitudes that I couldn't take hearing more than the first five or ten minutes of what either had to say in their violent condemnation of Biden -- argued that Biden's statement gave the Repubs too much red meat ro run with, and since that was indeed what McCain/Palin did, the two broadcasters felt justified in their ire. But to my mind the pair of them just became more members of the pack running blindly behind the lead canines, running with their jaws clamped around a chunk that would soon enough evaporate to no more than recognition of their lack of understanding a subtle point, for which it wasn't even necessary to know the state of Biden's mind -- which one of the two Air errant Air Americans thought was required.
This was clearly shown yesterday in their reactions to a statement by J. Biden, the Democratic VP hopeful, who, speaking at a private fundraiser, speculated that not far into his presidency, should he get it, B. Obama will be tested by an international crisis, upon which the inner steel in him will be clearly seen.
Immediately those ultra-reactionaries, his adversaries, J. McCain and S. Palin, both pounced on this statement, as they do on any remark tossed to them by the Democrats that they think offers the least ray of hope to reverse -- legitimately -- the continuing trend in favor of the Obama-Biden ticket in these last several days of the 2008 campaign. They took Biden to be saying that Obama's election to the post would cause an immediate international crisis.
I heard the statement, and so did my wife, and to us that wasn't what Biden's statement meant at all. Instead J. Biden was merely stating the obvious. As befits a country that has become accustomed to seeing itself as the only superpower and therefore the policeman of the world, it will undoubtedly be faced with yet another crisis after the election, and next year, too, and the year after that and in all the years to come, given the perpetual restlessness and incessant changes wrought by an ever-growing and ever-ambitious world population that is literally reproducing and consuming itself out of house, home, field, and planet.
That would be true no matter who is the U.S. President. Does anyone think that an Obama presidency will guarantee the total absence of crises? So Biden was saying that not if but when problems crop up, as they surely will, on top of and often due to the numerous hideous ones that the next President will inherit, and particularly if they came about as a result of the deeds and statements of other leaders overseas, the American populace who had voted for Obama to be the Prez would find him equal to the task.
Biden did not in any way, to our hearing and our understanding, say that these situations would be caused by Obama's election, and it was a measure of the stupidity of the McCain camp that they should've so eagerly seized on this statement and go off running with it, like dogs with a piece of red meat laced with poison -- for them. They should've at least asked themselves first if Biden would make so much a point of something that would be so sure to shoot him and his running mate in the foot. Biden has been accused of many things, but a lack of intelligence has never been one of them.
Yet Lionel and Kuby were appalled by Biden's statement, and Kuby said that it came at the worst possible time, and hysterically he equated it with "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," when actually it was no such thing, but merely an interesting way for the Delaware senator to bring attention to one of his running mate's inner qualities that may not have been apparent to some, notwithstanding the fact that Obama's steel has already been demonstrated time after time by not one but two extremely grueling political battles that he was been waging for close to two years now, when any lesser figures would long since have wilted badly, yet he is still going as strong as ever..
Kuby, and probably Lionel, too -- I was so disgusted and appalled by their attitudes that I couldn't take hearing more than the first five or ten minutes of what either had to say in their violent condemnation of Biden -- argued that Biden's statement gave the Repubs too much red meat ro run with, and since that was indeed what McCain/Palin did, the two broadcasters felt justified in their ire. But to my mind the pair of them just became more members of the pack running blindly behind the lead canines, running with their jaws clamped around a chunk that would soon enough evaporate to no more than recognition of their lack of understanding a subtle point, for which it wasn't even necessary to know the state of Biden's mind -- which one of the two Air errant Air Americans thought was required.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 8:21 AM
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