Anti-war, or merely anti-Republican?

We've seen many times in the last two years the...ah... flexibility of former Senators Obama and Biden's deeply held principles...

But now I'm wondering about the UU blogosphere- aside from my previous two posts, a search through UUpdates shows that a lobster could count on one hand the number of UU bloggers who have even mentioned the attacks on Libya. This strikes me as very odd. It's a stunning attack- the British are actually running out of cruise missiles, and a single US B2 Stealth sortie dropped 90,000 lbs of bombs, and we've flown hundreds of sorties. And yet the UU response could be described by Paul Simon- "...And my words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the sounds of silence..." Could you understand why the casual observer might conclude that we base our religious principles on our political principles?

Pride goeth before a fall

Back on the 21st of January, Vice President Biden made fun of Chief Justice Roberts' getting the oath of office wrong... then did it himself while swearing in Secretary of State Clinton! Somebody page Alanis Morisette...

I wonder what he meant by that?

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "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." ... "There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."

What is he alluding to? An atomic attack? A new war front? Or the opposite- is he hinting that the reason the decision may be unpopular is that we won't react militarily, that we might cut a deal instead? He does say, "We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."

Ominous as that warning about military action may sound, his economic comments are if anything, scarier. "Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Does this mean they plan to change our entire economic system? Does he want to change the market system? Lest you think I'm taking him out of context, here's the ABC News coverage. Portions are also available on YouTube.

Is he trying to prepare us for a long series of actions his supporters aren't expecting or wanting? Is it a warning that with one-party control of the country, they're going to remake the nation in the two years before the next election?

Or, given his history of strange, babbling speeches, does even HE know what he's talking about?

Is Joe Biden a hypocrite?

This is the claim being made on many blogs because of this headline: Palin gives more to charity than Biden Joe Biden, the champion of the poor, the man who illustrates every point with an anecdote about a conversation with his poor friends, gives less to charity than Governor Palin- who makes half as much money. "In 2006, the Palins paid $11,944 in taxes on $127,869 in income. In 2007, they paid $24,738 on $166,080.But in 2006, they donated $4,880 to charity, and in 2007, they donated $3,325. By contrast, Biden (D-Del.), Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's running mate, has donated a total of $3,690 since 1998 despite his higher Senate salary, according to an analysis posted by National Review."

This is a common phenomenon, written about many times- the supposedly hard-hearted Republicans giving more than the compassionate Democrats. From The Chronicle Of Philanthropy, Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist ; from ABC News, Who Gives and Who Doesn't? ; a state-by-state list from the Catalogue for Philanthropy . Does this indicate Liberal hypocrisy? Many are cynical enough to think so- I remember a Doonesbury strip, with Honey asking Duke, "Doesn't he care for the poor?", and Duke answering, "Of course he does- that's how he avoids being one of them."

No, Senator Biden is not a hypocrite; he really does care for the poor. His Senate service illustrates this- he has the talent to be a multimillionaire in private industry, as a lobbyist if nothing else. Every day he spends in the Senate is costing him a fortune. The difference in personal giving does not reflect where his heart is, it reflects where his trust and philosophies lie.

A political liberal believes in government solutions. He believes that his own gifts- even large ones- are like trying to fill the Grand Canyon by throwing bricks in it; a meaningless gesture for the most part. The real cure, he believes, is by creating programs that will help everyone everywhere. He trusts the government to handle such programs more fairly and effectively than any private charity could. He believes that it takes a village.

A political conservative believes government programs exist primarily to provide plum jobs for political appointees. He believes that even the best intentioned government programs will be bungled. And so he fights against government programs and gives privately instead.

There is the additional effect that the political conservative is most often also a religious conservative. A religious conservative tends to believe in a personal duty to help the poor and unfortunate; "Rendering unto Caesar" does not discharge that duty, only his personal efforts do. That is why the dirt-poor often give a higher percentage of their incomes than the better off.

This is the only nation in which this philosophical difference makes a practical difference. For example, the US is often criticized for how little foreign aid we give- but that criticism arises from the fact that only government programs are counted. To illustrate with a personal example, the amount we send to our sponsored child in Guatemala- small as it is- is tens of times higher than the portion of our taxes going to foreign aid... multiply that by millions of like-minded Americans, and the total amount of aid sent, government and private combined, is much higher per capita than any other nation.

But the rigid political partisan of either side doesn't look at the big picture. The liberal believes the conservative heartless because he doesn't support the liberal's pet project. The conservative believes the liberal a hypocrite and a demagogue because he isn't doing those things personally. The professional activist feeds those beliefs to create hatred and anger because he knows that those emotions are easier to manipulate. One activist sits on our right shoulder, whispering that liberals want government programs to increase their personal power and empire, that liberals just want to rule, using the poor as pawns. One activist sits on our left shoulder, whispering that conservatives are heartless, greedy pigs who don't give a damn about anyone else, too stupid to know their own good. And so we have these nasty election campaigns. Think about that manipulation before you post your next jeremiad.

Obama should honor McCain's request to suspend

Senator McCain has suspended his campaign to concentrate on the economic fix, and asked Senator Obama to do the same, postponing debates until after an agreement on the economy is reached in Congress. So far, Obama has refused, saying the debates will go on even if he's the only one there. I think Senator Obama would be wise to change his mind.

Was McCain's request made in good faith? President Clinton thinks so . ""We know he didn't do it because he's afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates," Clinton said..." Even so, it could still be a trick- any grand gesture in an election cycle is suspect. But I still think he should go along with it.

Why? To do what Senator McCain is doing- to keep his Vice Presidential pick out of the public eye for some coaching. Joe Biden is a walking gaffe machine. If someone doesn't get him a tranquilizer and get him back on message, he could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory all by himself. Here's a sampling from the last ten days:

He angrily denied being in favor of clean coal technology, ranting about how that was something the Chinese did, and "No coal plants for America- let them build it over there,"... when both he and Obama individually as Senators have championed clean coal, and together have it in their campaign energy policy. The gaffe resulted in this devastating McCain ad.

Got their stance on the economic bailout package wrong, causing him to be publicly chided by Obama himself.

That echoed an earlier gaffe on the economy when he said that he didn't know a single economist who had said that raising taxes on the rich would hurt the economy during our present crisis- after Senator Obama had said that very thing himself.

And while we're on the economy, he criticized Bush's lack of public discussion by saying "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed." FDR wasn't President when the market crashed, of course, and commercially available television wouldn't be offered to the public for another ten years...

Called one of his own campaign commercials terrible , saying, “I didn’t know we did it, and if I had anything to do with it, we’d have never done it.” This from the man who says the other candidate is "out of touch".

Said that raising taxes on the rich- you know, that thing that Obama said would harm the fragile economy- was patriotic . How can Obama complain about the Republicans wrapping themselves in the flag when his running mate is doing the same thing?

I'm not even counting a myriad of lesser gaffes, like "You need to work on your pecs", or "Stand up and let them see you", or "She might have been a better pick". These are harmless in themselves, although if he keeps it up the cumulative effect could be toxic.

Senator Obama has nothing to fear in his own debates, but he'd better start worrying about the Vice presidential ones. Governor Palin is no Jefferson or Adams in the intellect department, but she is a savvy politician with a true talent for snark. Biden has already given her enough ammunition to turn the debate into a celebrity roast if she so chooses. Or she could take just one- use his coal gaffe as a launch pad for her only area of expertise, energy, for example- and make herself look presidential. And that's assuming he doesn't make another gaffe during the debate- something i wouldn't bet on.

Senator Obama should listen to Senator McCain and take the bye week- and use it sending Biden back to political boot camp.

Turn about is fair gotcha?

When interviewing Governor Palin, Charles Gibson had a "gotcha" moment when she was hesitant on his question about the "Bush Doctrine". (although the pundit who coined the phrase said Gibson got it wrong, too)

Now it's Joe Biden's turn for a "gotcha". In this interview, he was unaware some economists say tax increases on the wealthy could hurt the economy more. "I don't know any economists who are saying that.”



Well he should know someone who said it just a week ago- Senator Obama Hey, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt; perhaps what he meant was that Senator Obama is no economist.