Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Time to Bring in The Closer

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It is time for President Obama to bring in the Administration’s version of Mariano Rivera.

They need a closer. And that closer is Joe Biden.

Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have fallen to 37%, chiefly because he refuses to negotiate with Republicans. The House Speaker has basically begged the President to do what every other President in American history has done: negotiate.

But the President and his chief ally on the Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, either won’t negotiate or can’t negotiate.

The White House is so convinced that they have the winning strategy that they even put out a meaningless veto threat on the Republican bill to name a so-called “negotiating committee” on legislation that will never reach the Senate floor. Continue reading →

Slow Down on Guns

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Obama Administration is making a huge mistake if it wants to pass significant gun legislation in this Congress.

I understand the impulse. They want to strike while the iron is hot. They believe that they have to pass something before people start forgetting about Sandy Hook.

The Vice President unveiled his proposals from his task force yesterday prematurely. Continue reading →

VP Debate Meaningless

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Vice Presidential debates are usually meaningless. The one last night was more meaningless than most meaningless Vice Presidential debates.

The most famous debate put-down in history came when Lloyd Bentsen tore into Dan Quayle, who, let’s face it, was no Jack Kennedy. Quayle looked like a fool, but his playing partner still won the election.

The highest-rated Vice Presidential debate had can-I-call-you Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Palin exceeded all expectations and won the debate on style points, but that had no measurable effect on the trajectory of John McCain’s ultimate defeat. Continue reading →

Blue Mountains and Budget Cliffs

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

WINTERGREEN, VA (Oct. 7, 2012)—The Blue Ridge Mountains are spectacular, even on a cold, overcast gray day in October. The leaves are turning color and the tranquility is sedating. Crisp 40-degree temperatures sharpen the senses, but still beckon you outdoors for slow walks and casual conversations.

Congressman Paul Ryan is here, preparing for his debate later in the week with the Vice President, jovial Joe Biden, the man who always says just a little more than he should. Continue reading →

Campaigns Part I: Public Must Save Campaigns

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“This is a political stunt.”

That was the analysis of Meet the Press host David Gregory, who was summoned to the anchor desk on the NBC Nightly News August 17, to offer more incisive in-depth coverage of what everyone in America was anguishing over, the Romney and Ryan tax returns.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had taken the podium on the Senate Floor a week or so earlier and accused Mitt Romney of not paying income taxes for 10 years. It is reasonable to assume that Reid deliberately lied about Romney’s taxes in a silly attempt to goad him into releasing tax returns for those 10 years.

Gregory was close, but he didn’t get it quite right. What we were witnessing was not a stunt, but a political disgrace. Continue reading →

Running Mate Good Cop, Bad Cop

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The best bad cop in American political history was Spiro T. Agnew.

He was the one who said that the media were “nattering nabobs of negativity,” called liberal intellectuals “an effete corps of impudent snobs”, and said of the Democrats, “They have formed their own 4-H club – the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

Agnew played the role to the hilt. He helped his running mate, Richard Nixon, looked moderate (which, of course, he was, on the domestic policy side of the equation). And because his comments were so exquisitely crafted, the press couldn’t help but print them.

The problem for Agnew is that he ended up actually being worse than a bad cop. He became a felon, and he had to resign his office so that he could spend some quality time in jail on corruption charges.

Agnew helped to define a new role for the Vice President. And that role was attack dog.

Continue reading →

A Marriage of Inconvenience

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

When Joe Biden was selected by Barack Obama to be his Vice Presidential running mate I was thrilled. I thought “If Obama wins, Biden’s propensity to trip over his own tongue will provide enough material to write two columns a week.” I would only have to earn the third column.

For the most part, darn it, Biden has behaved himself and hasn’t been the loose-lipped fool he has been since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware when he was 29 years old.

Biden made up for all of that this past weekend when he proclaimed his support for gay marriage on “Meet the Press”.

That put so much pressure on the President, that he had to come out (so to speak) in favor of gay marriage his own self after attempting to finesse the issue until after the November election.

Here’s something you might not know: Biden had taped that interview on Friday. It would appear that no one on the VP’s staff thought it was newsworthy enough to drift into the West Wing and tell the President’s folks that Biden had said he was for gay marriage. After the fact the Obama folks tried to pretend this was all part of a long-ago developed strategy. Continue reading →

“Send In the Clowns…They’re Here”

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from mullings.com

To succeed in America – to truly succeed in America – you have to be more than excellent at what you do; you have to be a carnival barker making certain that every single person in each of the 50 states knows that you are excellent at what you do.

Continue reading →

Egypt: Serious Troubles for All

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from mullings.com

On December 17, 2010 a 26 year-old fruit vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest at his treatment by the local authorities in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid.

Continue reading →

Biden No Jack on Message

BY JOHN FEEHERY

Reprinted from: feeherytheory.com

Sometimes, I just want to strangle Ronald McDonald.

From approximately 2 in the afternoon yesterday until about 8 o’clock yesterday night, my four-year old son had one message and one message only. He wanted to go to Old McDonald.

Old McDonald – as he likes to call the place where you get the Big Mac – serves Happy Meals, and apparently, the Happy Meal is the only thing that makes my son happy these days.

So, for every fifteen minutes, at various pitches and voice levels, my son requested that we go to Old McDonald’s and get a Happy Meal.

On one level, the discourse between my son and me was extraordinarily frustrating. I knew that he wasn’t going to get a Happy Meal yesterday, and he knew he wasn’t going to get a Happy Meal yesterday, but that didn’t stop him from requesting it on a fairly regular basis.

But on the other level, the message discipline that came from little Jack was very impressive. He stuck to his message, no matter how ineffective it turned out to be.

Little Jack reminds me a bit of Joe Biden.

Now, let’s not kid ourselves. When it comes to message discipline, Joe Biden is no Jack Feehery. Biden is usually on some crazy tangent somewhere, whether he is talking about Anna Chapman (probably my favorite Biden line ever), the President’s over-reliance on the teleprompter (a close second place), or whatever else comes through his transom.

Continue reading →

Random Thoughts and Quotations

By Michael S. Johnson

Foreign Dignitaries Who Should Brush up on Their Manners

Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to the United states on May 21^st, stepped up to the podium on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and condemned the people of Arizona.

It is one thing for the President of the United States to criticize the Arizonans. It is yet another for a foreign head of state. It is yet another for a foreign head of state to do it in the United States. It is yet another for a foreign head of state to do it while exercising a rare privilege afforded to only a very few Americans, let alone foreigners–to speak before the Congress of the United States from the podium of the people’s House.

Rock legend Paul McCartney was awarded the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Award at the White House a week or so ago. Standing in our White House, accepting an award from our President McCartney, I guess emboldened by Calderon, took the opportunity to insult former President Bush, saying at least he was getting the award from a President who knew what a library was. He could have at least waited until he got outside.

More on Arizona

President Calderon’s impertinence paled in comparison to the impenitence of Assistant Secretary of State Mike Posner, who repeatedly described the Arizona legislation as a “troubling trend in our society” to none other than the Chinese, at none other than a human rights conference. Why does he still have his job?

Joe Biden

Our Vice President continued the slaps at the U.S. in Belgium a couple of weeks ago. He said in prepared remarks that “Brussels probably now qualified for the capital of the free world,” a title Americans have assumed and taken pride in for a long time. Prepared remarks. Think about it.

Continue reading →