Re: Don’t Worry
- 10.20.2008 - 1:25 PMJennifer, the presumptive vice-messiah’s comments at a Seattle fundraiser — he apparently didn’t realize that journalists were present — are very, very interesting. I think that Biden actually said more than a lot of people think he said:
It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking…Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.
It is rather unwise to air such predictions about your running mate’s presidency two weeks before the election, but that’s what you get when you bring Joe Biden onto the campaign. Lawyers call this “assuming the risk.” The really interesting part is what followed:
I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate… And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.
Biden is saying two things about an Obama presidency: first, that Obama will be tested by America’s rivals; and second, that Obama’s response to such a test will likely be unpopular with the American people. Presumably Biden does not believe that the reason for that unpopularity will be because Obama is too decisive or too tough with our enemies — it will be because Obama is perceived as too soft and indecisive in a crisis.
This is the moment when Biden is asking Obama supporters to “stand with him,” even if he appears to be channeling Jimmy Carter. Biden says that it will not be “apparent initially that we’re right.” But does he think that the passage of time has vindicated Jimmy Carter?
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