Ghost of Al Gore will haunt smirking, interrupting Joe Biden as he fibs about what spies and generals told Obama administration
2 October 2012 6:44 AM
Joe Biden came out swinging at Paul Ryan, flailing wildly and landing a few punches on his own jaw as well as his opponent's. He showed the kind of spirit and populist anger that President Barack Obama was so conspicuously lacking and has cheered up many demoralised Democrats.
But Biden's performance here in Danville, Kentucky was both comical and self-defeating. Just as Al Gore sighed and rolled his eyes in 2000, so Biden smirked and guffawed. He gesticulated wildly and jabbed his finger. He interrupted Ryan and the moderator Martha Raddatz. Many women and swing voters will have hated it.
Perhaps the even bigger problem the Obama campaign will have in the coming days is that Biden, again just like Gore in 2000, repeatedly exaggerated and mischaracterised for effect. And worse than Gore - who was caught in a series of small lies in 2000 - Biden was demonstrably untruthful in some big respects.
Most seriously, Biden blamed the US intelligence community for the debacle and stated that no one had requested additional security.
When asked by Raddatz why the White House had blamed the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens on protests about a movie, he responded: 'Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community.'
There is ample evidence that this was not the case. From tomorrow, expect a number of senior intelligence figures to come out and say that. The US intelligence community is not about to take the fall for what happened in Benghazi just so Obama can be re-elected.
Even more startling was Biden's insistence: 'Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again.'
That is directly contradicted by testimony from two State Department officials this week. Eric Nordstrom, expressed frustration at how his appeals for more resources were rebuffed.
Lt Col Andrew Wood, former head of a 16-member U.S. military team that helped protect the embassy in Tripoli, testified: 'We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn't even keep what we had. There were requests for extra security; those requests were not honoured.'
On Afghanistan, Biden said that the Joint Chiefs had wanted to bring back the surge troops during this year's fighting season. 'There are people that are concerned, but not the Joint Chiefs,' Biden said. 'That was their recommendation in the Oval Office to the president of the United States of America. I sat there.'
In fact, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, testified before Congress that he had recommended a less aggressive drawdown timetable. 'The President's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept,' he said.
Failing to tell the truth about the professional advice and judgements of intelligence chiefs and generals is a perilous route for Biden to go down.
There were smaller issues too. Biden said that Libya was five times larger than Syria. In fact, Libya is almost ten times bigger than Syria. So much for Biden's much-vaunted foreign policy expertise.
At times, Ryan seemed a little cowed by Biden. Certainly, no one could blame him for being bemused by his antics. There were points at which Ryan could have held Biden to account and he didn't. He blinked too when he asked Biden whether he knew what the unemployment rate was in his native Scranton, Pennsylvania. Biden said he did but one sensed he was bluffing. Rather than wait for Biden to hang himself, Ryan told him it was 10 percent.
But as the night wore on, it was clear that Biden was all about Biden (who, even though he will be 73 and has won precisely zero in two presidential runs in 1988 and 2008, harbours ambitions to run in 2016). Whereas Ryan advocated for Romney, Biden was blowing his own trumpet.
Ryan made no mistakes and kept his cool. Conservatives wanted more full-throated arguments for their policies but Ryan was not about that tonight - his game plan was to be calm and reasonable and make the case that this election is a clear choice between bluster and excuses about the last four years and a plan to change things.
Biden over-compensated for Obama's passivity last week in Denver. He need to achieve a decisive victory that would allow Obama to regain the momentum. In this respect, he failed - snap polls suggested a score draw between the two men.
And by engaging in off-putting histrionics and displaying a cavalier attitude towards the truth, Biden was channelling Al Gore - in the debates against George W. Bush that put paid to Gore's lifelong ambition of winning the White House.
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