Obama-Biden: Marching in Liberal Lockstep 08/23/2008 At 3:21 am on Saturday, Barack Obama’s campaign sent out the mass e-mail and text message: He had chosen Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. It was a remarkably wrong-footed start for the pairing, with media reports of the choice having reached many of us almost 8 hours earlier despite the campaign’s promise that reporters subscribing to Obama’s website would be the first to know. Senator Biden beat out other leading contenders including Virginia governor Tim Kaine and Indiana senator Evan Bayh, as well as more long-shot possibilities such as Kathleen Sibelius, Bill Richardson, and Chet Edwards.Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942 before his family moved to Delaware ten years later. In college, Biden double-majored in history and political science, then going law school and becoming a member of the Delaware Bar in 1969.
Prime Minister Pham Van Dong called on me and, in the presence of Premier Chou En-lai, swore in the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that the latter would always respect the land frontiers as well as all islands belonging to the "Kingdom of Cambodia" March 1970 by Sihanouk . Wilfred Burchett book "The China Cambodia Vietnam triangle " P-176-177 VIETNAMESE CULTURE : lies & cheat -PHAM VAN DONG AS PRIME MINISTER declared to King Sihanouk that Vietnam respect Cambodia independence and territorial integrity in exchange for Cambodia recognition of the North Vietnamese as legal government of Vietnam in 1967 and allowed Vietnam to open the Ambassy in Phnom Penh in June 1967. King Sihanouk agreed to the Vietnamese demand. -PHAM VAN DONG AS PRIME MINISTER , in 1978 had sent Vietnamese troops to invade and occupy Cambodia from 1978-2006 through the CPP/Hun Sen regime . An estimate 460 000 innocent Cambodian killed under Le Duc Tho rule 1979-1989 As of today Vietnam continues to occupy Cambodia through the CPP/Hun Sen regime supported by China despite over 10 UN resolutions calling VIETNAM TO CEASE HER OCCUPATION AND REMOVE ALL HER TROOPS FROM CAMBODIA. Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:19:05 -0700From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Joe Biden: The Bad, The Good, And The Bad Again — I mean, And The Press.To: [email protected] Biden’s record on choice is weak. He’s nominally pro-choice, but he supported the ban on so-called “partial birth” abortions, opposes public funding for abortion, and received a none-too-encouraging rating of 60% from NARAL last year. But what concerns me even more are his votes in favor of limiting the estate tax and “reforming” bankruptcy law. The bankruptcy bill, in particular, was an abomination, and his vote in favor of it was unconscionable. That bill will ruin peoples’ lives — in fact, I’m sure it has already. I’ve heard the rationale that since Biden is from Delaware, he’s “the senator from MBNA” by default, but I don’t buy that excuse. Does anyone really think Biden, who’s held his senate seat for longer than most Americans have been alive, would have suddenly become politically vulnerable if he’d voted differently? I doubt it. It’s not like opposing the bill would have been unpopular with the voters. Then there’s a whole other issue — call it, the asshole factor. Biden is a hothead and a blowhard, and he’s well-known for his habit of making gaffes and unfortunate remarks. Here are some of his greatest hits: (You’ll have to click through to Kathy’s to read the greatest hits!) Meanwhile Ezra argues that the choice of Biden should please progressives: For progressives, this is encouraging pick. More encouraging than Bayh, or Kaine, or even, in a way, Sebelius. More encouraging than picks who might have been more progressive, but less pugnacious. Elevating Biden suggests that the Obama campaign has decided to have an argument. Not try to win on momentum and inspiration and GOTV, but to engage, and win, an argument about which set of ideas is better for the future of the country. And in Biden, they’ve engaged at the point of greatest vulnerability and opportunity for Democrats: National security. A political history of the past few years in Democratic politics is a history of the party’s failed attempts to dance away from foreign policy discussions. There was the Thomas Frank school of thought: Pivot from “national security to economic insecurity.” There was the George Lakoff approach: Reframe the language. There was the Kerry approach: “How can they be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in Boise?” But even if these approaches had succeeded — they didn’t — they would still have bespoke long-term weakness in the Democratic Party: A fundamental inability to win arguments about American foreign policy. A Democrat has not been elected during wartime in over 50 years. A healthy party cannot only prosper when the world is at peace and the waters are quiet. But seven years of Republican incompetence and failure have generated tremendous mistrust in the conservative foreign policy approach. Iraq was a historic blunder, Osama bin Laden is loose, America’s international standing is dismal. There’s an opening for Democrats to press the advantage, argue that they, in fact, have the better record, and the sounder ideas, on national security. But they have to actually engage the argument. They can’t hope that events will do the work for them. Picking Biden, the Obama campaign signaled that this is a project they want to take on, and a project they realize will have to be engaged affirmatively and aggressively. I think both Kathy and Ezra make good cases, and in my usual wishy-washy fashion I agree with them both. But it’s D-Day who wrote something that had me screaming “yes! SO true!” at my computer monitor:1 Actually, who betrayed the public is you, the media, again, because you just couldn’t stand not being insiders for ten minutes and waiting out the pick and maybe using those resources of staking out potential candidates’ homes and working the phones on, I don’t know, illegal wars and torture. The press only breaks out their investigative skills every four years so they can scoop their competition by 20 seconds. Would it have killed them to embargo the story and let the campaign play it out the way they wanted? Would it have mattered to anyone? This secret was so tantalizing to them, making it necessary to marshal the full resources of the American media, while eight years of secret government and secret law received no such attention. The discovery of the pick was an end in itself, justifying their clubby, insider self-images as the coolest kids in the room. And then, after they’ve undermined the rollout, they blame the candidate. Curtsy: Auguste. (And see here for more well-earned press-bashing..) Well, not really. But somewhere inside, I screamed it. (back) ShareThis| This entry was posted by Ampersand and is filed under Elections and politics, Media criticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 5 Responses to “Joe Biden: The Bad, The Good, And The Bad Again — I mean, And The Press” Jeff Fecke Writes: August 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm Yes, yes, and yes. I’d like Biden to have voted against the soi disant partial birth ban, I’d like him to have voted in favor of marriage equality, I’d like him to be in favor of using taxpayer money on abortion. But he authored VAWA, he’s been consistently pro-choice on the central question of abortion, and he led the fight against Robert Bork. In short, he’s not perfect, but he’s not Joe Lieberman, either. And he got off enough good shots at McCain today that I think he’s going to be just fine.This comment was written by Jeff Fecke. Report this comment to the moderators Elkins Writes: August 23rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm I think it is evidence of how totally jaded I have become about politics that my very first reaction to hearing the news was something along the lines of: “Hahaha! Oh, excellent. Biden’s a laugh riot, and he makes the most appalling gaffes. This should make for great entertainment!” Yes, it has come to this. I’ve so utterly lost hope that things will ever get better that all I want now from the political sphere is a steady stream of cheap yuks.This comment was written by Elkins. Report this comment to the moderators Tom T. Writes: August 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm I guess the war (which Biden voted for) is no longer even an issue?This comment was written by Tom T.. Report this comment to the moderators Pat Kight Writes: August 23rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm Two points: 1) While he may not be perfect on reproductive freedom, as a devout Roman Catholic he’s practically a radical (and miles better than damned near any Republican). 2) For many of us, the war is still very much an issue. But which of the Senators who voted against it in 2002 would be a better choice for the ticket? I’ll give Biden this: He’s forthrightly admitted his vote was a mistake. All things considered, I think he’s a smart choice, and would make good vice president.This comment was written by Pat Kight. Report this comment to the moderators Jeff Fecke Writes: August 23rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm He’s forthrightly admitted his vote was a mistake. I’m sympathetic. I wasn’t exactly pro-war, but I wasn’t exactly anti-war, either. I should have been. I was wrong not to be. But I wasn’t. And had I been in office in 2002, I surely could have convinced myself to vote for the AUMF. And I would have been wrong. I don’t have a problem with politicians being wrong. Politicians will be wrong. They’re humans, after all. I have a problem with politicians who don’t learn from being wrong. Biden was wrong — and admitted it, and said so, flatly. Yes, it would have been better if he was right in the first place — but since he wasn’t, he’s done the next best thing. ----- Original Message ----From: Neak kampuchea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org <[email protected]>Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 2:00:03 AMSubject: Chau Bury is a Khmer Krom extremist leader group to destroy Cambodia.Chau Bury or Chan Bury or Chanta Bury is the same guy from KK groupthat carries Vietnamese toilet at all time. When he pronounces something, he starts with "Vietnam occupation".Yes occupation on KK heads in South Vietnam, but it’s not in Cambodia.She is free to spend dollars on any street, but in Vietnam foreigncurrency circulating is prohibited. We get freedom to move and tochoose inter-racial marriage with Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese andothers. We are in here accepting integration among ethnicities inwhich million and million new face of Cambodia have been coming upeveryday.This main stream Cambodian is reaching majority in which everyCambodian must be cooperated with each other to loudly speak outtogether for educationally bringing “Chunkampuchea” into the publicmind set. This is our sole duty for psychologically unifying allCambodia's inhabitant without discriminating of origin of birth ofanyone if we want Cambodia to get strong with diversity.Remember, pronouncing person race is an insult, from which would be abig push for Cambodia social disintegration and devastated disaster.Cambodian democracy needs to have courage for changing the old way ofthinking for adjusting to the continued changing Cambodian socialfabric. We must defuse racism time bomb and have a strong politicalsupport from a novel policy of non discrimination of origin of birthto start with as a win-win strategy by using a new speaking term forwinning hearts and souls of every diverse Cambodia’s inhabitants. Weneed one Cambodian society as a one big Cambodian nation in a onestrong Cambodia. This is a unique way for forging all Cambodia’sinhabitants into a one solid Cambodian national UNITY._________________________________________________________________ See what people are saying about Windows Live. Check out featured posts. http://www.windowslive.com/connect?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_connect2_082008 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group. This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language. Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/camdisc Learn more - http://www.cambodia.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
