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Biden Disqualified
Even as he castigated the former vice-president for being an enabler of the Iraq War, the veteran maintained that quintessentially military respect for authority.
You are disqualified, sir!
— Iraq War veteran
Sir, indeed! There was not much Biden could say. He made a feeble attempt to defend himself, using his son’s service in Iraq to deflect the accusation, but the vet persisted.
My friends are dead because of your policies.
Their blood is on your hands!
It got me thinking of what it means to be disqualified. It means being eliminated from consideration. But who gets to decide?
Meanwhile, in another browser window, Syrian refugees are trapped in a no-man’s land between two countries that barely acknowledge their right to exist. In the heartbreaking photo two men, carrying their young children, try to make it across the border into Greece. They must have been children themselves, I muse, when Sen. Joe Biden, chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was making the case for war. We still live with the consequences of the fateful decision to invade Iraq, but of course those consequences have fallen more heavily on others.
Where the consequences of that horrific decision have not fallen, though, is in the corridors of power. The Democratic Party had no qualms running another Iraq War enabler, Hillary Clinton, in 2016. Now it is supposed that Joe Biden, one of the ideological architects of that war, will be the nominee.
Let’s dispense with the conceit that the Iraq War was a mistake. It was not. It was a bloody, deliberate, bipartisan adventure. It was literally a crime under international law.
Sweeping Democratic complicity under the rug did not make it go away. It still rankles that no one was held accountable for what was done in the name of the American people, and the fact that elites blithely presume it is not disqualifying for Biden is telling.
Being qualified — or not — isn’t so much an attribute of the candidate as it is the determination of that Iraq War veteran, or of any individual with a functioning moral compass. We each have the ability, or better, the responsibility to make that determination.
There are millions who opposed the war from the start, in the streets. There are the credulous Americans only able to recognize their tragic complicity in retrospect; those whose imaginations were purloined by a media enraptured by the drama — and the ratings — and conjoined with the military-industrial complex. And there are those who came to understand when their legs were blown off, or their brothers came home in bags, the horror of that war, and its futility.
The notion that the best candidate the Democrats can muster in 2020 is Joe Biden shows us a party elite detached from any accountability for that disaster and the convulsions it caused. However, if we were to elect Biden, that would equally tell us something about ourselves, about our own predisposition to excuse and justify and rationalize, about our negligence in holding them accountable.
Anyone can say Joe Biden is disqualified. Veterans can say it. I can say it. You can say it with me. We can all say it together.
During the Iraq War we said,“Not in my name.” In 2020, it’s simply,“No.”
[Joe Biden photo credit: Gage Skidmore]
This article originally appeared at AmericanSpring.blog
If you thought we were going to be able to stick to debating the issues, the Warren vs Bernie cage match arranged by CNN has dispelled that fantasy. The last thing the mainstream media wants to do is debate the issues. It doesn’t generate viewers or clicks, and the progressive ideas gaining currency are anathema to the corporate agenda.
Instead, we are subjected to a contrived smear, a red herring that distracts from the underlying political dynamics. While it’s necessary to deal with it, let’s do it with dispatch and move on.
First, consider the context. The Iowa caucus is less than three weeks away. Elizabeth Warren is trailing in the Iowa polls, essentially tied for third place. The last debate, held on January 14, is days away. If a candidate is losing and wants to do something to move the polls, it’s now or never. …
One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Take the gun debate. After every mass shooting there are emotional calls for action, heated debates, legislative paralysis, and ultimately nothing is done. We could keep doing the same thing; but if we want to make any progress we need to consider doing something different. But what?
It turns out that when you look at specific measures to curb gun violence there is remarkable agreement on some of them across the political spectrum. For example ―
- Universal background checks are favored by 92% of American voters, with 92% support among gun owners and 86% support among Republicans. …
When I describe Radical Honesty to people there are generally two kinds of reactions: either an excited “Where do I sign up?” or a horrified “Why on Earth would I want to do that?”
Believe me, I understand. The idea of being completely honest can be frightening. Beneath the surface is the fear that if people really see us as we are, we won’t be loved. There is the fear that if people really know what we think about them it might hurt their feelings and they might leave us.
The idea underlying Radical Honesty is simply that we create more love and intimacy with people in our lives when we are honest about what we think and feel. That’s it. However, Radical Honesty isn’t just the concept that being honest is a good idea, it is the practice of actually being honest. In Radical Honesty we practice the skills that enable you to do that, so that truth-telling becomes a tool for building trust, not a weapon that destroys it. …
Many Superdelegates made their decision to endorse Sec. Clinton even before Sen. Sanders had entered the race, and certainly before they had any idea it would be a contested convention. No doubt, at the time it seemed like the right thing to do, but the situation has changed dramatically.
First, the unexpected ascendancy of Donald Trump has given the race a dire urgency. Winning the election was important before; now it is critical. The most recent poll shows Trump beating Clinton in a head to head contest. That should give our Superdelegates pause. The stakes are extremely high.
Second, the ongoing FBI investigation continues to hang over the Clinton campaign. If you research the facts and allegations it’s clear that Clinton getting away unscathed is not a sure thing. The timing of the release of the FBI’s report is in the hands of FBI Director James Comey, so it’s a wild card, a known unknown. He is in no rush to finish the investigation before the Democratic National Convention in July. …
The point isn’t that the massive amounts of money corporations have donated to Hillary directly influenced her votes.
You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.
– Hillary Clinton
Out and out bribery — I don’t know how often that happens, and it’s hard to prove since obviously neither party wants it known. But that’s only one form of corruption.
Suppose you’re a legislator considering introducing a bill that you know Wall St. wouldn’t like. …
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