Senators reached a tentative agreement on the economic stimulus bill Friday night. While speaking to House Democrats on Friday morning, Joe Biden did not torpedo the package.
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Biden does not derail agreement on stimulus bill
By Jimmy Orr | 02.06.09
With word of an apparent agreement in the Senate on the “bipartisan” stimulus bill (three Republicans have signed on), it appears that not even Joe Biden’s alleged gaffe this morning could have torpedoed it.
The way CNN host Wolf Blitzer presented the vice president’s remarks Friday, it looked as though Biden couldn’t have fumbled at a worse time.
As Randy VanWarmer once sang, “Just when I needed you most.”
But, truth be told, he’s innocent.
30% chance of fail
While discussing the president’s stimulus package with Obama advisor David Axelrod this afternoon, Blitzer played a clip from the vice president’s speech at the House Democrats’ retreat.
“If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, we stand up there and we make really tough decisions, there’s still a 30-percent chance we’re going to get it wrong,” Biden said.
“That’s not very encouraging,” Blitzer said. “A one in three chance that even if the president gets everything he wants, it’s still going to be wrong?”
“I don’t know exactly about what that math was,” Axelrod muttered before quickly launching into the administration’s line on the supersized spending bill.
Not again
Fact is, Blitzer took the comments out of context. The vice president wasn’t talking specifically about the stimulus bill. He was talking about the challenges overall that the country faces.
Even the Washington Times didn’t play gotcha with Biden’s remarks acknowledging that much of the vice president’s talk centered on the importance of House Democrats “sticking together and making unpopular but necessary decisions.”
“Not since World War II has a caucus gathered with so many challenges facing our country and the stakes so high. If we do everything right … there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong. You, too.”
There’s the context.
No matter
Regardless, the conservative side of the blogosphere is having fun with the clip tonight passing that CNN video around.
Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard wonders, “Is that how Democrats defined competence before the election?”
One reader at the National Review writes, “Has Joe Biden become the political equivalent of Manny Ramirez? Nothing that the VP does even elicits a questioning look anymore; it’s just ‘Biden being Biden’ much like ‘Manny being Manny.’”
Well, Biden is still Biden. And his remarks were still very candid. But, at least in this case, the press office won’t have to send out a press release “clarifying” what he said.
Probably.
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2. Ted | 02.07.09
No to “stimulus” bill. Here’s why:
Since Obama’s earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic’s survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court and Military Joint Chiefs to refrain from exercising WHAT IS THEIR ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama’s Kenyan birth and his father’s Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited ‘after-the-fact’ short form ‘certificate’. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addessed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment ‘citizen’ is not sufficient. A ‘President’ MUST BE an Article 2 ‘natural born citizen’ AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS’ INTENT.
3. Ted | 02.07.09
No to “stimulus” bill. Here’s why:
Since Obama’s earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic’s survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court and Military Joint Chiefs to refrain from exercising WHAT IS THEIR ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama’s Kenyan birth and his father’s Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited ‘after-the-fact’ short form ‘certificate’. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addessed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment ‘citizen’ is not sufficient. A ‘President’ MUST BE an Article 2 ‘natural born citizen’ AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS’ INTENT.
4. Dave B. | 02.09.09
Good job Ted! Also, have you heard that the atom accelerator in France was said to shut off due to a malfunction of uncertain origin, just as the financial meltdown occurred? So many conspiracies, so little time.
5. Joan | 02.10.09
The Oabama administration has been misleading the citizens since they got in office. Biden is the one who let’s the truth slip out.
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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.
1. RHarrisonScott | 02.07.09
If Governor Palin had made this remark, the major broadcast media would have distorted it for a solid week and then repeated the story every week or so to remind viewers that she is judgmentally challenged despite the fact that it was really a non story. Another example of the continuing decline brought about by the introduction of interpretative journalism in the 1960s. Glad to see that Jimmy Orr is doing his job.