Hillary Clinton on Obama VP Pick

[furrbear]

in the L.A. Times this morning ...

"In naming my colleague and friend Joe Biden to be the vice presidential nominee, Barack Obama has continued in the best traditions for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant. Senator Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Senator Obama both win the presidency and govern this great country.”

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

This further solidifies my voting for McCain.

Biden once insulted my intelligence while seeming to confess to violating the Logan Act.

He was in Iowa City stumping for his presidential bid. During an open-air speech in the pedestrian mall, he outlined his plan for partitioning Iraq among three groups (Sunni, Shia and Kurds), and giving them each substantial autonomy -- in essence, as he claimed, giving them a federal system.

I raised my hand. After about twenty minutes, he called on me. I pointed out that Iraqi military forces were already prohibited from going into Kurdish lands without Kurdish permission -- if you grant the Kurds any more autonomy you're going to be granting them outright independence. This won't be a federal system, this won't even a confederated system, this will outright partitioning.

Then, about ten minutes after the partitioning the Turks will invade Kurdistan, since the Turks have repeatedly declared they will not abide an independent Kurdistan on their border. I asked him how he planned on avoiding this firestorm.

"Well, in my private discussions with representatives of the Turkish government, they've privately told me that they like my plan, they think it's realistic, and they'll back it up when I present it."

If he's going to be talking about his private sessions with representatives of the Turkish government in which he's negotiating for the future of Iraq, I think it's fair to ask whether he upheld the Logan Act in the process. I think it's also fair to ask why he believes the Turks would stand behind this private negotiation, since an invasion of the new Kurdistan would be overwhelmingly demanded by their population. A private agreement would be so easy to throw underneath the bus of political expediency.

"They're on board," Biden assured me, but he didn't answer either of my questions.

I don't trust Biden. His partitioning scheme was an easy answer to a complex problem and would be absolutely doomed. But the audience wanted to hear an easy answer, so that's what he gave.

[voxbaryton.livejournal.com]

The Kurds deserve their own country, so as far as I'm concerned your anecdote tells me that Biden knows exactly what he's doing.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Whether the Kurds deserve their own country is not the question. The question is whether a plan that will produce a shooting war between the US and Turkey, in which the US would be forced to defend Iraq and take up arms against a fellow NATO member for the first time in history, can honestly be called a plan to get us out of Iraq.

Biden's "plan" would either lead to the US and Turkey entering into armed conflict, or the US cutting and running while Turkey occupied northern Iraq and further destabilized the region. Neither one is a realistic option.

[bookish-cub.livejournal.com]

Sadly, that won't be enough to placate her most rabid supporters.

[voxbaryton.livejournal.com]

Hopefully it will turn out that they arent as significant as they wish to be.