Biden talks to the media - worried about economy tanking
By Jimmy Orr | 12.20.08
Ok, they won the election. Joe Biden can talk to the media again.
After being all but muzzled during the general election for a series of gaffes and mistakes, the incoming vice president is speaking to the media again.
He gave his first post-election interview yesterday to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Bad news then
And no one can talk about dire circumstances better than he. Recall that during the campaign he came up with an interesting reason on why to vote for Barack Obama:
“We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy,” the candidate said, imploring the crowd to “gird your loins.” Soon after that line, he was practically invisible on the campaign trail.
Bad news now
But it’s safe to talk again. And the circumstances are dire again. Now, though, his focus is on the economy.
His take? It’s bad. Bleak. Awful. He told the ABC host that he’s worried about the economy “absolutely tanking.”
“The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in,” Biden told Stephanopoulos. “There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That’s the only short run.”
“The single most important thing we have to do as a new administration, to have - to be able to have impact on all of the other things we want to do, from foreign policy to domestic policy, is we’ve got to begin to stem this bleeding here and begin to stop the loss of jobs in the creation of jobs,” he said.
Consensus
He also announced something that was not known to be possible - every economist apparently agrees with each other.
“Every single person I’ve spoken to agrees with every major economist,” Biden said. “There’s going to be real significant investment whether it be $600 billion … or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it’s a number no one thought about a year ago.”
President Truman would have loved to hear about such a consensus. He was so agitated with economists that he pleaded for a one-handed economist to avoid hearing ‘on the one hand…and on the other…”
Oops, we’ll try it again
On the program, Biden also talks about his decision to get a second dog. His choice of getting a puppy from a breeder raised the ire of animal advocates everywhere.
So, he’s going to the pound to get a second Second Dog.
A politically correct move to put out the firestorm?
Of course not, Biden says.
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Jimmy Orr has worked in politics for the majority of his professional career working for two U.S. Senators, two Governors and one President. Most recently, Orr served as White House Spokesman and Internet Director for President George W. Bush and Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger for Internet Communications.
David Cook is Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor and host of the Monitor's newsmaker breakfasts. He was the Monitor's editor from 1994 to 2001. Cook is a graduate of Principia College, served in the U.S. Army, was a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and is a member of the Gridiron Club, Washington's oldest journalistic organization.
