Lowering Expectations for Obama/Biden

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Dec 23, 2008 at 08:45


Here's Joe Biden.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is worried about the "exceedingly high expectations" the world community has for Barack Obama's presidency.

He believes he and Obama must follow through with action to show how they're different than George W. Bush, Biden told CNN's Larry King Monday.

"I have been contacted by so many world leaders. Their expectation for Barack's presidency is overwhelming," Biden said. "They are so hungry to have an American leader who they think has a policy that reflects our stated values as well as one they can talk to."

At the same time, Biden expressed sympathy for Bush over the Baghdad shoe-throwing incident - a day after Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney traded shots on the Sunday shows. "I feel somewhat badly for him," Biden said. "I think the incident in Iraq was - was unfortunate, that guy throwing the shoes. It was just uncalled for . . .and I think that President Bush and, unlike Vice President Cheney, is, upon reflection beginning to acknowledge some of the serious, if not mistakes, misjudgments that he made."
Matt Stoller :: Lowering Expectations for Obama/Biden
It's funny, this advance self-pity combined with the empathy towards a brutal monster like Dick Cheney.  It reminds me of Bill Clinton, who refused to go ahead and let the villains in the Iran-Contra scandal go unpunished.  Here's why.

"I wanted the country to be more united, not more divided, even if that split would be to my political advantage," Clinton wrote. "Finally, President Bush had given decades of service to our country, and I thought we should allow him to retire in peace, leaving the matter between him and his conscience."

An illegal war in Central America and egregious desecration of the Constitution are apparently matters of personal conscience at this point.  Good to know that we live in an elected monarchy.  Still, the people I feel bad for are not our previous kings, Dick Cheney and George Bush, who may or may not believe they made serious errors.  It's the hundreds of thousands of people they ended up killing through reckless wars, the millions they've impoverished through awful policies, and those who must live on the very margins of the world they damaged.  Joe Biden, well, he feels bad for Dick Cheney.  And I guess that's telling, considering that Biden wants to remove troops in Iraq "because more combat forces are needed in Afghanistan" not because the invasion of Iraq was a stupid criminal enterprise run by vicious thugs in nice suits.  

Unlike a lot of Obama supporters, I'm not waiting to be disappointed.  This is what he promised.  But it's painful to see Rick Warren giving the keynote at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemorative Service the day before the inauguration.  The residual troops and escalation in Afghanistan, I got that, but the open bigotry in the name of tolerance and 'reaching out' - that I did not expect.

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Lowering Expectations for Obama/Biden | 46 comments
pity (4.00 / 3)
Joe Biden doesn't feel bad for Dick Cheney. He feels bad for George W. Bush. And isn't this missing thte point a little bit? You see monarchism in Biden's sentiment; I see pity. And there's no better way to defang a powerful figure than through pity.
no better way to defang a powerful figure (4.00 / 1)
oh yeah there is, jail. death also happens to be on the list but generally I that's too good for some.

~* the * Will * to go on *~
[ Parent ]
or (4.00 / 5)
Impeachment, since that actually, you know, removes their power.
[ Parent ]
specifying the domain of defanging (4.00 / 2)
You're recommending imprisonment, and possibly capital punishment? Well, I'd support the former and not the latter, though the gist of what you say is true enough. But I meant "there's no better way rhetorically to defang..." Legal remedies would certainly be preferable.

But honestly, I associate a liberal moral perspective with the ability to have a nuanced understanding of moral responsibility - to see someone who would, say, order torture as acting from a position of ignorance and stunted moral development; in short, to understand others with empathy. If we simply see people like Bush as evildoers, without making this additional move toward understanding the causes of their actions, then we're suffering from a crimped perspective just as surely as they are. It's in this way that I think Biden's pity is warranted: pity as empathy for the wretched.

[ Parent ]
this is true (4.00 / 6)
And I would not want to shit on someone for having compassion, even for Cheney, but my liberalism also demands Cheney go to jail as a disincentive to future Cheneys.  

I also take seriously the notion that he is actually a sociopath.  Since we can't treat them as we have no way to create a sense of empathy in people who lack it, he is a dangerous man and will remain so as long as he lives.

[ Parent ]
That establishes an odd hierarchy of empathies- (4.00 / 2)
the aggressors first, victimized second. I mean, that's why we have law, no, to prioritize our empathy. Otherwise, we have an anarchic system, where the violent act unmanageably, and the brutally victimized are unworthy of our protection? Why is it different for Cheney, then say a sociopath with a gun on the street?
[ Parent ]
not a hierarchy (4.00 / 1)
We have laws (mostly) to protect rights, is what I'd say. I don't think they have much to do with empathy, really. And also I wouldn't want to prioritize empathies. I don't think it's a zero-sum thing - empathy all around! So throw the book at Cheney, but also try to understnd why he is so freaking dastardly (note: not to make ourselves feel all warm and fuzzy about Dick Cheney, but mainly so that we can avoid the conditions that gave rise to Cheney in the future). (And but also I'm sort of with de Groot - it is really hard to feel sympathy for Cheney - much harder than with Bush, even; and maybe this is because he's sociopathic and it's just a bridge too far to try to relate to him. That seems to be what Biden's expressing too.)
[ Parent ]
Ah you have been reading Spinoza. (0.00 / 0)
To understand.  Those of us who studied psychoanalysis recognize it as a defense mechanism. Over understanding when criminal justice needs to intervene.

Oh that poor husband didn't mean to beat his wife and child. Remember he was beaten as a child and feel sorry for him. Nuts to that.

[ Parent ]
no no no no no (4.00 / 1)
This is exactly the mentality I'm arguing against: that it's incompatible to understand that a person is morally responsible for their actions and also to understand the ultimate causes of their actions. It's the husband's responsibility if he beats his wife, of course; but if we want to actually do anything about wife-beating, it's not enough to simply blame him. We should also understand why he beats his wife. To do that requires empathy, and a sophisticated moral intelligence.
[ Parent ]
Be Careful... (0.00 / 0)
In the post 9-11 draconian anti-liberty world, exercise some common sense when mentioning death and executive branch figures in the same sentence.    
[ Parent ]
Ah yes... (4.00 / 2)
the familiar jiu-jitsu argument.  How diabolical!
[ Parent ]
Ah, how I pity the poor (4.00 / 6)
Bushes.

Condemned to a lifetime of drinking cold ones on the veranda of their mansion in the Dallas suburbs. Maybe with the occasional respite of flying to Alaska to shoot wolves from helicopters.

It's downright tragic.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
And Biden, by the way (4.00 / 1)
"feels bad" for Bush, not "badly."

Terrible grammar: is this change we can believe in?

[ Parent ]
Not clear from the post (0.00 / 0)
The MLK commemorative service is at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and has nothing to do with the inauguration. I am not surprised that there is no service funded from public money....

And Chachy is right. Biden is expressing sympathy for Bush. The piece even says so. You can also read where Biden condemns Cheney for not showing remorse.  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  

All Matt can really say (0.00 / 0)
is that Warren is already being "elevated". But it is as likely that the two decisions to have Warren are independent.  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  
[ Parent ]
The highest expectations (4.00 / 3)
The United States faces huge challenges on many fronts:

We face a climate crisis of immense proportions that affects the entire globe.

We face an economic crisis, and it's not just a matter of shortening and ending a massive recession but also of creating a new and viable long-term economic path that does not rely on unsustainable bubbles and that also provides opportunities to all Americans.

We face a health care crisis.

I expect the Obama administration to make headway on all these issues even though I know it will not be easy.  Repbulicans will try to fight him tooth and nail on nearly all of these issues, and the collapse in oil prices propelled by the global recession will give opponents of a new energy economy every chance to dig in their heeels--don't think that they won't use it.

I expect real and decisive action from Obama on all of these issues as well as others even though I know progress will not be easy, and I am not giving up before he has even taken office.

I expect more capitulation. (4.00 / 3)
I expect Obama to tell us, "gee, you know, I really wanted to do something about global warming/economic collapse/healthcare/Iraq/fill in the blank but it's just not politically feasible at this point in time."

I also expect the rest of us to put our collective foot in his back and make him do something anyway.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
agreed (4.00 / 1)
I knew from the get-go that the two most common phrases uttered by the incoming administration would be "we want to focus on the future, not the mistakes of the past" and the phrase you mentioned above. The typical excuses for preserving government non-accountability. It's amazing to me that ardent Obamaphiles excuse the identical capitulation from Obama that they condemn Reid & Pelosi for.
[ Parent ]
Like a good Beltway fellow (4.00 / 5)
Joe's concept of being a uniter is to cut slack to the GOP, who apparently can't even be said to have made "mistakes."

Maybe there were "misjudgments," but surely visceral anger at the people who -- for completely fallacious reasons -- shocked and awed millions of Iraqis into exile, dismemberment, or death is "uncalled for."

Post-partisanship means it's uncalled for to stand against the values and policies of Red State Nation.  As my fellow-blogger Lambert once asked, if post-partisan is so great, why should it matter which party one votes for? Wouldn't a vote for McCain have been a noble statement that we were above that execrable partisan bickering?

I guess it's easy to see how Biden might sympathize with Bush and Cheney's plight as innocent misjudgers:

It is difficult to over-estimate the critical role Biden played in making the tragedy of the Iraq war possible. More than two months prior to the 2002 war resolution even being introduced, in what was widely interpreted as the first sign that Congress would endorse a U.S. invasion of Iraq, Biden declared on August 4 that the United States was probably going to war. In his powerful position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he orchestrated a propaganda show designed to sell the war to skeptical colleagues and the America public by ensuring that dissenting voices would not get a fair hearing.

Oh, and BTW, whatever you do, don't accuse Joe Biden of being a populist! He hates that Blue State crap! I guess that's understandable because "the problem with a lot of elites in the Democratic party, quite frankly, is they communicate they don't respect people's faith."

As Obama once said of his own straw-man concept of the latte-lapping left, "Who wants somebody like that?"  

I didn't get the "empathy" toward Cheney (4.00 / 3)
I read Biden this way: "Forget Bush, save your shoes for Cheney".

But I agree, I don't see any inclination to hold the Neo-Con Junta accountable for their malicious, lie-laced, regime.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

Agreed... (0.00 / 0)
Matt, I think you're misreading this... He's saying he feels bad for Bush, not Cheney.

Now, maybe he shouldn't feel bad for Bush either... but that is, as it appears to me, to be what he is saying.

[ Parent ]
He's just saying what he thinks he needs to say to the media (0.00 / 0)
He can't just say it like it is. So unbeltway that would be.
[ Parent ]
what i'd settle for (0.00 / 0)
is not hearing excuses. Biden here is basically setting up a low performance expectation so that they can escape accountability. i mean, come on, shoot for the stars you loser, you wanted this chance. Good grief.

Biden on the shoe thing doesn't really trouble me. I imagine once you get to the white house the anxiety of physical threats becomes very real and if I were in his um, shoes, I would want to discourage such action in general also.

~* the * Will * to go on *~

No President should face the indignity of flying footwear! (4.00 / 4)
I don't blame Biden one bit.  

Reasonable people can disagree -- and disagree reasonably! -- about the wisdom of invading a country that posed a limited strategic threat to the U.S. and its neighbors, based on false pretenses, causing the deaths of several thousand U.S. soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, a civil war, costing trillions of dollars, and weakening America's military capabilities.

Throwing a shoe?  Throwing a freaking shoe?!?  These people are savages! That was completely uncalled for.

Now that is a reasonable comment. (0.00 / 0)


Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Although I suspect you are being a smart aleck (0.00 / 0)
The real savages hide behind lapel pins and UN resolutions obtained on the bases of lies while they send other people to do their dirty work and then stab those who carry out their vile plans in the back.



"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Watch Fitzgerald (0.00 / 0)
I would not be surprised if Fitzgerald had one last card to play, in January, something that will shake up the comfortable DC bipartisan complacency.

And I am not talking about anything related to Chicago.

Ah Fitzmas (0.00 / 0)
No, Santa didn't come last time.  I'm not expecting anything like that.
[ Parent ]
And how on Earth is showing "they're different than George W. Bush" (4.00 / 3)
an "exceedingly high" expectation?  Being better than the worst President in history?  That is hurdle roughly one micron above the ground.

All Obama has to do is NOT lie us into any more wars, NOT continue the looting of the treasury, NOT put off terrorist warnings until after month-long vacations, NOT ignore a city that is under water, NOT choke on a pretzel, NOT fall off a Segway, and NOT fondle Angela Merkel.

Could Biden be more of a douchebag? Let me revise his statement:

I am concerned about the exceedingly low standard that Obama will be measured against.  Just as Bill O'Reilly was shocked that he could go to a Harlem restaurant and find civilized human beings, many Americans will be pleasantly surprised that a black President will not steal the hubcaps off of his limousine...or replace them with spinner rims.

On top of that, by following the disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, Barack Obama will be hailed as a wild success if he merely doesn't burn the White House down or accidentally nuke Canda.

I fear that this tragically low standard that our administration will be measured against will give us little incentive to take the risks necessary to solve difficult problems."


Not waiting to be disappointed (4.00 / 1)
Gee, what a surprise.  Who saw that coming?
Half the critics here (0.00 / 0)
Are probably migrates from Puma sites, judging by the amazing similarities of the lingo's they use.No surprises for me that they are perpetually concerned, disappointed and outraged.  
[ Parent ]
Don't worry, Joe, (4.00 / 2)
...my expectations for the Obama administration have already been seriously diminished. What we are seeing is the triumph of the quisling Democratic Party Establishment. After all, if you prosecute the criminals from the previous admin, you open yourself up to prosecution for crimes you may want to commit in the future. If there are no convictions, then there were no crimes.

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain
Huh? (4.00 / 1)
Where did you get that from? Biden explicitly said he did NOT feel sorry for Cheney.

Of course, he DID say he feels a little sorry for Bush, who can go f*ck himself as far as I'm concerned. But this is little other than Biden musing out loud.

And the Rick Warren/MLK thing is unrelated to the inauguration or to Obama.

I can get disappointment with Obama (even though I do think a lot of the handwringing is premature and although I sometimes think people miss the forest for the trees) -- but I don't quite understand how you extrapolate from the things mentioned in this post to some kind of betrayal.  

It is the new cool (0.00 / 0)
Where did you get that from? Biden explicitly said he did NOT feel sorry for Cheney.

Lie to make team obama look bad. Happened with the lie about bush tax cuts promise (where he consistently said he would let them expire as far as 4 months ago), Iraq plans, Gitmo etc. Full of innuendo's and reading minds these days and far less of any facts.
[ Parent ]
You say (4.00 / 2)
" The residual troops and escalation in Afghanistan, I got that"

The escalation in Afghanistan is not OK. It is another disastrous mistake and will not lead to a stable Afghanistan with a self-determined government. There are some 32,000 US troops there now; with the new escalation it will be 60,000 enough to partially fill a football stadium; the situation calls for political resolution (unfortunately this means negotiating and deal-making with the Taliban).

No deals with the Taliban. Those haters of women and children (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Sigh (4.00 / 3)
I am quickly losing hope in the incoming administration. I knew Obama wouldn't be the great Progressive savior so many of his ardent supporters were (delusionally?) making him out to be. I can only hope that circumstances force the Obama administration into bolder, more progressive moves than they have signaled thus far.

What this country needed, even before the economic meltdown, was a new President with the strength of character to fully and unequivocally repudiate the Bush administration & it's policies in their entirety. I knew we weren't going to get that - from any of the viable candidates. But that does not diminish the need.  

Like it or not... (0.00 / 0)
But we've got a lot of things to fix in this country. Health care, the economy, our foreign policy. And every indication so far from Obama is that on those fronts, he's going to change things dramatically from the Bush administration.

No incoming administration is going to spend much-needed political capital trashing or investigating the outgoing administration. Put simply: this country survived George W. Bush. I'd rather Obama's administration spend their time figuring out how to fix the damage the Bush administration has wrought than trying to prosecute them for it.


Further Reading

If the "rule of law" is to have any meaning whatsoever (4.00 / 3)
Prosecuting criminals is a means to begin fixing the damage wrought by said criminals.

Repairing the damage that the Bush/Cheney Junta caused goes further than the first 100 days, 2 years, or term of Mr. O. It goes directly toward disincentivizing the NEXT gang of neo-con thugs by demonstrating that the era of non-accountability is over. One can draw a direct line from the scale of criminality that Bush/Cheney (rightly?) calculated they could get a way with to the lack of accountability for the Iran/Contra crimes. Letting it all go, once again, in the name of political expediency is just fertilizing the seeds of our next destructive, unitary executive.

There in no greater issue facing the next administration. Now, it may not be as immediate as the economic problems, or as comprehensive as national health care - but it is critically important that we underscore the concept that, yes Mr. Cheney, even the executive branch is subject to our Constitution and our laws.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I want the world court to go after them. Same as Hitler and Milosovec (0.00 / 0)
Because we can't do it. I mean we can but we won't so they will have to do it for us.
[ Parent ]
I suppose the World Court is better than none (4.00 / 3)
but, really, if the US wants to hold our nation up as an example to the rest of the world, we really should hold them accountable right here at home.

Of course, should the World Court indict, it may be up to the Obama Administration to arrest and extradite them, so it will come down to the next President either way.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
The world court needs to weigh in here (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Fine, let the world court have their day, too (4.00 / 1)
The question is: Why won't the Democrats investigate crimes perpetrated by Repubican administrations in the realm of foreign relations?

The answer that started this sub-thread was a suggestion that its because so many other important issues need to be addressed and the political division produced by confronting the Bush/Cheney administration would stymie those programs. I think that is far too simplistic, but provides convenient cover that plays well in the media and pacifies folks that don't look too deeply at the governance of our nation.

When one considers that any serious analyses of how the occupation of Iraq was concieved, sold, and implemented would not stop at the machinations of the Neo-Con Junta, but start pointing fingers at the enablers in Congress, many of whom are Democrats and some of which are now on the Obama Team, we start to see behind the veil. But, its bigger than that, actually.

At the root, however, is unspoken fact that the US is in the business of creating an empire and has been for pretty much the last half of the 20th century. Its an empire based on the force of arms, not the rule of law. Both political parties have a stake in not rocking the boat and maintaining the military/industrial/congressional complex. The "rule of law" is a nice phrase, trotted out from time to time to convince us that we are justified in launching a few missiles, or occupying a sovereign nation, but it has little to do with how the American Empire seeks to enforce its will on the rest of the world.

Keeping the world court out of US empirical matters is the reason that the US has not recognized their authority to prosecute Americans.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I heard an NPR report on Iraq war (4.00 / 1)
burn victims the other day.  One guy has had umpteen surgeries and is now choosing whether to just let his severely injured left arm go (burned, etc). That is, to have it amputated, so he can finally stop the cycle of surgery, recovery (while his wife has to care for him).  He wants to be able to be involved with his children, with his family, again, to the fullest extent possible. Keep the arm, lose the arm. His choice.

I think about him, and his thousands of injured brothers and sisters and I feel rage toward Bush and Cheney.

AWOL George W let all this carnage happen.  I don't pity him or Dick.  I wish they would have to look the people in the eye every day whose suffering is their legacy.

And that doesn't begin to consider the suffering and deaths of the Iraqi people.

I know (0.00 / 0)
my comment isn't precisely pertinent to the discussion. I guess any talk of Biden, or anyone, feeling sorry for W, who 1 month before he walks, expresses a teensy bit of remorse infuriates me.

In a just universe, W and Cheney would have 10 lifetimes of reparations ahead of them

[ Parent ]
Yes it's just gooey sentimentalism (4.00 / 1)
You know the drunk who cries in his beer about the things he's done. Only it's Biden feeling sorry for Geo W.

Before 9-11 I saw Bush on CNN at an airport being interviewed. There was a lot of background noise and he wa just inarticulate. It wasn't the place or time for an interview and he appeared much the worse for wear. At that moment I pitied him. I will always remember that stupid sentimental feeling in light of all that came after.

[ Parent ]
Lowering Expectations for Obama/Biden | 46 comments
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