Electing for the Daily Double today by appearing on two Sunday morning shows in an effort to rebut former Vice President Dick Cheney’s appearance on ABC’s This Morning, Vice President Joe Biden tried in vain to refute the Cheney polemic that has come to haunt the Obama administration on foreign policy and terrorism.
In what was perhaps the most amusing comment of the morning, Sheriff Joe hoisted himself on his own petard with this gaffe:
“Let me choose my words carefully here [Editor Note: Gaffe Warning]… Dick Cheney is a fine fellow. He’s entitled to his own opinion. He’s not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged. He’s not entitled to his own facts,” Biden said. “It’s one thing to criticize. It’s another thing to sort of rewrite history… I’m not going to guess about his motives. All I know is that he’s factually, substantially wrong on the major criticisms he is asserting. Why he’s insisting on that? Either he’s misinformed or he is misinforming.”
But Vice President Biden certainly feels entitled to his own set of facts that reside safely unchallenged inside his own head. And he’s certainly rewriting history. How else does he reconcile the revisionism going on inside his own skull when he is on record saying things like this:
I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.
As Andrew Malcolm noted:
Thank goodness, Vice President Joe Biden went on CNN to chat with Larry King Wednesday night. So many think things are not going so well for the Democrat administration, as The Ticket chronicled here.
Many Americans recall the ex-Sen. Biden’s Democratic primary plans to give in to Iraq’s fractious factions and carve the country into three territories. And even more probably recall Biden’s boss’ plan to halt the Iraq war years ago. As long as it got started anyway without the permission of the then state senator.
Well, of course, it didn’t turn out that way, thanks in large measure to the brave service of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops who served in that war-torn land and helped peace to break out despite the loud political acrimony back home over their role.
Now, the Obama-Biden pair that opposed the Iraq war and its tactics and predicted their failure is prepared to accept credit for its success.
To borrow the Vice President’s words, neither is he entitled to rewrite history without being challenged and neither he is entitled to his own facts. But I will guess at the Vice President’s motives and tactics. First, he’s unwilling to acknowledge success. Second, he’s a demgogue that is not accustomed to being questioned by annoying innertube pundits and Tea Party types, much less Sunday morning talk show sycophants that unexpectedly find some spine. He is, rather, an intellectually fossilized thirty six year fixture from the United States Senate that is totally estranged from the political reality of the day. Carry on Mr. Vice President, we’re (thirty nine votes) right behind you.
H/T Memeorandum
