An essay in appreciation of Dick Cheney ...

… can be found at Hillbuzz:

He may be a crotchety, gruff, surly, wiseass who shoots people in the face — but he was OUR crotchety, gruff, surly, friend’s-face-shooting wiseass…with great emphasis on the WISE part.

Lots of comments. Pix of Joe Biden eating ice cream. Thanks to Ace, who has his own funny take on it.

Obama's plan for Afghanistan?

Gerard Vanderleun seems to have it figured out:

I think he realizes what his needs are in Afghanistan. What he needs to do is end a war in an American defeat while being seen as "trying for a victory." To do that he has to engineer an American defeat. Iraq is already, in the public mind at least, in the win column. So how do we engineer an American defeat? It is simplicity itself. You begin, not with a "surge" but a ripple.

Full details at American Digest.

The one thing that Vanderleun leaves out is this business of negotiating with the "moderate Taliban." Vice-President Biden has apparently been conducting interviews, or taking a poll:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., speaking to NATO allies this week in Brussels, called 5 percent of the Taliban “incorrigible — not susceptible to anything other than being defeated.” A senior European diplomat involved in Afghanistan said officials believed that number to be 100 to 1,000 Qaeda and Taliban members. Mr. Biden said he believed that “another 25 percent or so” were uncertain about their commitment to the insurgency, while about 70 percent were involved because it meant “getting paid.”

But how exactly the Afghan government and the United States will pry away those insurgents remained unclear. Whatever is decided must be presented by the Afghan government, Mr. Biden said. “I do think it is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state,” he said.

I wonder why that question of "whether or not there are those who …" was not included in the survey.

It could be an amusing (for them) exercise in taqqiya for the Talib chiefs to pick a couple of their number to pretend to be moderates, and go waste the infidels' time in pointless talk. This would provide something for the Administration to point to: "See, we have found the moderate Taliban, and we are negotiating right now."

Update: "Barack Obama fails to win Nato troops he wants for Afghanistan."

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

I don't understand. I thought that relations with our allies were supposed to improve. Or as Glenn Reynolds says, "No, we can't." There is more to diplomacy than impassioned pleading.

Biden gaffes again, again

I hope someone is collecting these.

Glenn Reynolds (bless him) links to yet another, at KLSA in Shreveport:

Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show, Vice President Joe Biden asked, "But what I don't understand from Governor Jindal is what would he do? In Louisiana, there's 400 people a day losing their jobs. What's he doing?"

But that claim is wrong if you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

"In December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation besides the District of Columbia, according to the national press release, that added employment over the month," said Patty Granier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

"The state gained 3,700 jobs for the seasonally adjusted employment," Granier said of the most recent figures.

Those numbers are available on Louisiana's employment website, laworks.net.

Also available on the site are the state's latest unemployment statistics, statistics that appear to directly contradict what the vice president said Wednesday morning.…

A call to the White House on the source of Mr. Biden's information has not been returned.

Video at the link. In which you can hear the Vice President refer to "Governor Jindell."

Let's see, now. 400 people a day, that would be 2,000 people per 5-day work week, or 2,800 people per calendar week. For a 30-day month, assuming calendar weeks, 12,000 people. You'd think that would make the news.

Keep talking, Joe. While you are administering the biggest spending program in the history of the world.

Hey, Joe, I think it's 867-5309

Where you goin' with that cellphone in your hand?

I cannot, will not, try to collect all the Bidenisms here. But this one's a beauty (video at the link):

While discussing Recovery.gov, the taxpayer's stimulus guide The Ticket wrote about this morning, on CBS' "Early Show" today, Biden was asked what the address for the website was.

His clueless response undoubtedly put a smile on the faces of tech-savvy viewers.

"You know, I'm embarrassed," Biden said. Turning to someone off screen, he asked, "Do you know the website number?"

Oh, I know, it's pretty trivial, compared to some of his other silly bits. But it's just one thing after another.

And after that speech from Obama last night, in which he mentioned "energy" 14 times, and "nuclear" only once, and then in the phrase "nuclear proliferation," which as you know, Bob, always refers to weapons, I am beginning to doubt that the Obama team is quite as savvy as they would like people to think. Winging it. They're winging it.

Green, green, rocky road. Promenade in green. Who do you love?

Thanks as so often to the indispensable Instapundit, who says, "I mean, it’s not as if you’d put Biden in charge of something you wanted to succeed . . . ."

Experience will tell

or, Biden gaffes again. Spotted at Kausfiles:

“I know as much or more than Cheney." Mr. Biden said. "I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.” Wow. a) Biden has no private sector experience after age 30, right? b) How insecure is this guy? Getting close to dangerously insecure, no? ... And here we we'd just succeeded in explaining away the "I have a much higher IQ than you do" aria of credentialist braggadocio. ...

To which I would add: You're not Vice President yet! Another error of fact. I have more Bidenisms around here somewhere: oh, here are the links to the Campaign Spot lists.

I expect the collected Bushisms will look like jewels of oratory, well-supported with facts and logic, compared to the collected Bidenisms.

VP debate

I just about wanted to throw something right at the beginning when Palin condemned "predator lenders" instead of going after the Democrats, who set up this whole CRA, Fan & Fred mess.

It got better after that.

Watching Biden throw the bull is almost enjoyable, in the way that one enjoys watching any master practice his craft. Almost, but not really, because the future of our country is at stake—and the future of our country = the future of the free world, aka Western civilization. He slings the BS so well that people don't call him on it. The US and France threw Hezbollah out of Lebanon? Please!

Jim Geraghty at NRO has a list. Part 1, Part 2. There may be more to come.

But possibly the most important and dangerous thing he said Thursday night was that he and Obama would somehow make it possible in cases where people were having trouble paying their mortgages for the principal to be adjusted! We have heard a lot of crazy talk from the Democrats in this campaign, but this is past crazy and into psychotic territory. Gerard Van der Leun calls this "just simply mind-numbing." (Like being hit with a brick?) Do read the comments. Donald Sensing says "Biden promises to destroy the American housing market." Hope and change, all right. Let's just change everything, and hope we survive. Might lose a few Kulaks along the way, but it's for the greater good.