The case against Barack Obama, in Joe Biden’s own words

I haven’t yet written about Sen. Biden’s remarks in Seattle this past Saturday because I’ve been sick—I think it was Monday evening before I even did so much as turn on either the TV or the computer (which at least saved me from angsting over the Seahawks)—and I still don’t have a great deal of energy, but I’ve been rather astonished by them; I appreciate the points folks like Hugh Hewitt, Beldar (and also here), Bill Kristol, and Tom Maguire have raised in response, which I think are right on. Beyond my amazement at the extraordinary lack of political discipline shown by the Democratic ticket in fundraisers (it’s amazing that Sen. Biden actually thought it was a good idea to say what he said, but no more so than Sen. Obama’s comments in San Francisco last April), these are the things that really strike me out of all this:One, it’s one thing for me to project a major attack on the US in the first year of an Obama presidency, based just on reading the trends and the tea leaves; it’s quite something else when Sen. Joe Biden, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party—and thus one of the most thoroughly-briefed people in the world, a man who’s been told what almost no one is told—says so. It’s especially something else when he says the attack will come within six months and offers multiple threat axes. Folks, this isn’t just a prediction now, it’s the next best thing to a guarantee: if we elect Sen. Obama in two weeks, sometime next year, we’re going to get hammered. His own running mate assures us of that, and he’s seen as much of the playbook as there is to see.Two, Sen. Biden says, “I think I can be value added” because “I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know”; this would be more reassuring if his partition plan for Iraq and his recent fantasy about the US and France kicking Hizb’allah out of Lebanon didn’t indicate that he’s forgotten most of what he knew about foreign policy as well.Three, Sen. Biden pre-emptively dismissed the idea that we have the military capability to respond to what’s coming. Saying this in public is nothing less than giving aid and comfort to the enemy; it’s something a braver age would call treason. Such remarks, should the Obama/Biden ticket win next month, will do nothing but embolden the enemies of this nation and make them more willing to attack us; whatever they might believe about our ability to defeat them, they will know that our leaders don’t believe we can defeat them, and that as a consequence they have half the battle won right there. That will only make them more willing and even eager to attack, because it raises the possible rewards and lowers the risk.Four, though I don’t think it’s as obvious as Hewitt thinks that this is what Sen. Biden is talking about, I think he’s right to say that

an Iran-Israel confrontation is coming, and that if Obama is president, America will sit it out with, at best, words that do nothing to support Israel or deter Iran. . . . A President Obama will blink when Iran threatens Israel by approaching the nuclear tripwire. A President Obama will seek to force Israel to live with Iran as a nuclear power capable of either striking Israel or shipping to Hezbollah the means of threatening the very existence of the Jewish state, and the supporters of Israel in the U.S. will be stunned and then angry.

I think he’s right because I don’t think Sen. Obama has the political will to do otherwise. As Dr. Victor Davis Hanson told Hewitt in an interview,

It’s easy to say, as Obama says, it’s a game-changer if Iran were to get a nuclear device. What does that mean, a game-changer? That’s intolerable. What he’s not telling you is that if I choose to make sure that they don’t have a nuclear device, then that means that basically the United States is going to have to impose an embargo or a Naval blockade because the Europeans will still try to profit to the 11th hour, or even a military strike. I, Barack Obama, must be hated by people in Berlin. There’s no more Victory Column great extravaganzas for me. There’s no more fawning interviews with Der Spiegel. It’s going to be hatred from those people. I’m going to be a unilateralist pre-empter, and I’m going to do that, and all the people in the Muslim world and the Arab world that love me and fawn over me are going to hate me as worse than you know what. Okay, I’m willing to do that for a principle. Do you think he’s going to be willing to do that, or John McCain? I’m sorry, but I don’t think that all of that cheap rhetoric about invading Pakistan and a game-changer in Iran is anything other than rhetoric, because I think the problem with Obama is he’s bought into the idea of Vero Possumus, the new presidential seal that he’s promulgating, that the seas are going to cease to rise, that the planet won’t heat up, this is the change that we’ve been waiting for. And he really believe in this Messianic sense that people love him for himself. And he’s not going to be willing to give up that easily.

Unfortunately, messianic leadership only works in combination with messianic wisdom and messianic humility—and those a) are only to be found in the true Messiah, the Son of God, and b) lead not to political victory but to death on a cross. As for messianic leadership without those other components? Well, that doesn’t lead to political victory either, but to true disaster.Five, Sen. Biden’s reason for saying all this to those folks in Seattle was to prepare them to hang in for a terrible two years that will see the Obama administration become terribly unpopular. I wonder if he’s followed that through to realize just how unpopular the Democrats in Congress will likely become as well? Certainly, everything he says supports my own thought that we could see a GOP tidal wave in 2010 wipe out Democratic majorities all over the place. (If so, all the more important that folks like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and the others who will lead the GOP going forward take the time to think long, hard, and deeply about how to address the issues our country faces, both domestic and international.) As Hewitt put it, Sen. Biden sees a crisis coming and “suspects that Obama will react to the coming crisis in a way that demoralizes the country and which shatters public confidence in Obama.” I’ve been comparing Sen. Obama to Jimmy Carter ca. 1976, but this is sounding more like the 1979-80 version of Jimmy Carter—and that’s not good news. It’s not good news at all.Six, obviously, Sen. Biden believes that in saying all this, he’s making the case for Obama supporters to stand strong behind their candidate. I don’t. I do believe, however, that he’s underscoring a very important reality. While I’m convinced that electing Barack Obama will only embolden our enemies abroad and weaken our strength at home, and thus worsen the problems we’re facing, these problems, on the whole, have little to do with Barack Obama. He hasn’t done anything to help them, but neither have most of his colleagues, and some of them he could do nothing about. They exist regardless, and will continue to exist regardless, and thus it would be far too facile to say that electing John McCain would mean that we get to avoid them. We don’t. I believe we’ll see better economic policies if he wins, but this will still be a turbulent and trying time for our economy no matter what; and while I believe foreign enemies such as Iran and al’Qaeda will be far more circumspect in the face of a President McCain than a President Obama, they’re not going to just pack up shop, go home, and sit out the next four years if he wins. Far from it: they’ll be working to bring us down either way, and they’ll be a clear and present danger to us either way.All of which is to say: whoever wins, fasten your seatbelts—we’re in for a bumpy ride, and a long, long night.Addendum: here’s what Gov. Palin had to say in response to Sen. Biden’s remarks: