Base Attacks

And so it goes: Conservatives who've been slamming Joe Biden for his "in chains" gag are minimizing Mitt Romney's birther gag. Whether intentional or instinctual, both were signals to elements of the parties' bases: Respectively, African-Americans and fantasists.

What Rush Didn't Say Was No Fluke

On Rush Limbaugh's radio program this morning, a caller accused Rep. Todd Akin of having been paid off for torpedoing the GOP's chances to win back the U.S. Senate and perhaps even the presidency. Referring to Akin's theories about rape and abortion, the caller said, "Nobody believes that." Limbaugh replied, "I'm not sure nobody believes it" -- and then stopped. He said he had to go to a top-of-the-hour break and mumbled that it was probably better that he was being interrupted.

According to news reports, Limbaugh calls Akin's comments stupid and says that he hopes the congressman will do the right thing and quit his Senate race against the Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill (D-MO). I didn't listen to any more of his show today -- while driving I sometimes flip around among talk shows on KFI, KRLA, and KPCC -- so I don't know if he finished his thought about the prevalence of Akin's views.

One can't help wondering what he might have said. Mitt Romney, for instance, has accepted the support of an anti-abortion activist who believes, just as Akin does, that women's bodies have the power to terminate pregnancies that result from what Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, and others call "forcible rape" (Akin's term was "legitimate rape"). Akin, Ryan, the GOP platform committee, and 20% of the American people want to make all abortion illegal without exceptions for rape or incest. They fear that in the pre-1920 conditions they envision for American women, those wanting or needing an abortion would lie and claim to have been raped.

So Limbaugh's right: Some people do believe as Akin does, and they're pretty powerful. Expressing the rest of whatever had bubbled to his lips might well have contributed to what Akin's critics seem to fear most: Voters realizing he's not an outlier. As an opponent of women's reproductive rights, Akin actually stands neck-deep in the mainstream of his party's thinking.

It's not a debate the GOP wants to have before the election, since when it comes to women's rights, its mainstream doesn't conjoin with the national mainstream. They're not even in the same time zone. Many conservatives still have trouble understanding that women (and a considerable number of men) won't let government dictate to them about abortion. The hard work of reducing the number of abortions instead requires the broad availability of sex education and birth control, gently encouraging women (think tax breaks and free college tuition) to carry unwanted babies to term and give them up for adoption, and better teaching and preaching about sex's sanctity and awe-inspiring generative power. But as long as Republicans insist that the way to battle abortion is to put women back in chains (thanks for that image, Joe Biden), Todd Akin is the poster boy they deserve.

Biden, Our Time

We should’ve guessed that we were waiting our turn while someone rendered unto Caesar. Instead, when gate personnel announced Tuesday afternoon that our El Al flight to Tel Aviv would board an hour late, we St. John’s pilgrims confined our speculations to the commonplace.

Twenty minutes before the announcement, the flight crew had arrived and hopped the shuttle bus from the departure lounge to the aircraft, so we knew the equipment must’ve been there already. Pilgrim Mike thought it might be a delayed connection into LAX, but on second thought, who connects to a 14-hour flight to Israel out of Los Angeles? Still, we kept our eyes peeled for a contingent of vacationing Tel Avivans in Hawaiian shirts and leis.

Then I spotted the gleaming white and blue aircraft emblazoned with the words “The United States of America,” taxiing in a stately fashion toward takeoff position without another plane anywhere near it. Color me Sorkin, but it’s always a thrilling sight. A quick Google search revealed that the vice president had just given a speech at an AFSCME convention in LA, whereupon he boarded the only airplane available that shines as blindingly as his teeth.

We didn’t mind. Leaving an hour late on a sunny day without the prospect of a plane change beat our January 2011 pilgrimage experience – four hours late out of Atlanta after being deiced at two in the morning.

Biden His Time In Beijing

My former Nixon Center buddy Steve Clemons reports that the VP is taking over the China portfolio.

"What The Secretary Of State Meant To Say..."

Robert Reich predicts that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will swap jobs.

Get Her A Future

In March, Israel's prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, was embarrassed (and the Obama administration justifiably outraged) when Jerusalem's municipal government approved new homes for Israelis in Palestinian neighborhoods at the very time that Vice President Biden was visiting. This week, Netanyahu's foreign minister (a West Bank settler himself) enunciated his own policy on the peace talks, which the prime minister, thankfully, disavowed.

What exactly are we witnessing? Total governmental dysfunction? The system's capacity for giving the PM plausible deniability, undermining the peace process so he doesn't have to? Or just democracy, Israel style? I bet #3. The Jewish state's one-man, one-policy approach to politics helps us appreciate the lack of wiggle room Netanyahu has when it comes to the issue of West Bank settlements. But that doesn't mean they don't have to stop. It makes no logical or moral sense to build another unit of housing on land that's supposed to be a Palestinian state someday, and I think Netanyahu knows it. I prayed he'd have his Nixon in China moment last week, before the 10-month moratorium on new settlements expired. For her sake (a friend I made in Jericho in 2007, who must be nine or 10 by now), I hope it comes soon.

Obama's Way

Who talks to Bob Woodward? Everybody, evidently. Last September, he got the leak of the Pentagon memo that ignited President Obama's agonized reappraisal of his Afghanistan policy. Now his 16th book lays bare the reappraisal itself, including the day Obama passed out his own six-page war strategy memo:

Obama kept asking for "an exit plan" to go along with any further troop commitment, and is shown growing increasingly frustrated with the military hierarchy for not providing one. At one strategy session, the president waved a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which put a price tag of $889 billion over 10 years on the military's open-ended approach.

In the end, Obama essentially designed his own strategy for the 30,000 troops, which some aides considered a compromise between the military command's request for 40,000 and Biden's relentless efforts to limit the escalation to 20,000 as part of a "hybrid option" that he had developed with Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a dramatic scene at the White House on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009, Obama summoned the national security team to outline his decision and distribute his six-page terms sheet. He went around the room, one by one, asking each participant whether he or she had any objections - to "say so now," Woodward reports.

You'll get chills reading Obama say how worried he is about a nuclear attack by terrorists.

Pray For The President And Jerusalem Peace

It was surprising that as soon as he was sworn in in 2009, Barack Obama put the full authority of his office behind a Middle East peace initiative, which soon stalled because of Israel's stubbornness about building new West Bank settlements and Palestinian intransigence about coming back to the table. And it's astonishing that he's trying again in the teeth of a midterm election. To satisfy the Palestinian side, Secretary of State Clinton gave the talks a one-year limit, which means that Obama could have a massive embarrassment on his hands at the end of 2011, just as he tools up for a reelection bid.

Which is why it's important to understand that we're seeing Obama at his substantive best here, betting on nebulous hopes for peace instead of acting through the understandable fear of failure by which the last two presidents chose to leave the Middle East until the ends of their terms, when they had virtually nothing to lose (and correspondingly less leverage).

Obama has played his cards skillfully. After the U.S. was humiliated in March when the Israeli government announced new housing in East Jerusalem as VP Biden was visiting, Obama turned up the heat on Prime Minister Netanyahu, making him earn his way back into the our graces. Worried friends of Israel said they feared he was turning out to be the most anti-Israel president in recent memory. In certain quarters, speculation no doubt abounded that that he was under secret Muslim discipline, taking late-night calls from a cabal of imams. But he let Bibi come in from the wilderness soon enough. Now, as "Politico" notes:

[T]he United States will enter the new talks with new assets: a stronger public relationship with Israel's hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confidence in Palestinian efforts on the ground and an appreciation for the tedious, incremental path forward.

This seemingly impossible challenge is ideally suited to Obama's ability to listen to all sides and inspire them to move forward together. If he succeeds and gets a final-status deal, he'll have earned his Nobel Peace Prize and perhaps more.

Biden's Not Hidin'

Major "Newsweek" puff piece for the VP.

Saying No To Joe

The U.S. Afghanistan commander, speaking in London:

General [Stanley] McChrystal was asked by a member of an audience that included retired military commanders and security specialists whether he would support an idea put forward by Mr. Biden to scale back the American military presence in Afghanistan to focus on tracking down the leaders of Al Qaeda, in place of the current broader effort now under way to defeat the Taliban.

“The short answer is: no,” he said. “You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”

One Day, Two Fixes

Having disputed Joe Biden's assertion that the Obama administration misjudged the economy, the President also says that Biden was wrong to have green-lighted an Israeli attack on Iran. Good thing Palin didn't get in, huh?

Biden This Time

Andrew Sullivan wrote eloquently and angrily last year about the Presidential candidate whose choice of an ill-prepared, inapt VP candidate demonstrated his lack of judgment. Of course, he was writing about Sen. McCain's choice of Gov. Palin, whereas today, Sullivan wrote:

Why is Biden allowed on national television? He's incapable of staying on message which, in terms of foreign policy, is a disaster.

Air Force Two Is Probably Cool

How about our wacky Vice President? If he were us, he wouldn't ride on planes or subways or be in confined spaces with other human beings. Beyond that, don't panic! According to CBS radio news, the White House issued a statement saying he meant flights to Mexico. Whether he also meant subways to Mexico is unclear. I'd glad we didn't elect that incompetent, Gov. Palin. Of course, if Dick Cheney had said such a thing...Oh, never mind.

Having Sloppy Joe For Lunch

Conventional GOP wisdom was that because of his celebrated gaffes, the VP would be relegated to his own private policy Alaska. Not so, reports Mark Leibovich:

Mr. Biden’s reputation for windiness, self-regard and unrestrained ambition have long prompted some degree of eye-rolling around him and probably always will. But what has been striking to many in the administration has been how strenuously the president has worked to include him and, perhaps most notably, the influence Mr. Biden appears to be wielding.

It Ain't So, Joe

KSLA in Sheveport:

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.

President Nixon's Call To Joe Biden

Getting relatively little attention as new White House tapes are opened is a call President Nixon placed to Senator-elect Biden in November 1972 after the death of his wife and two of his children in an auto accident (I'll repunctuate and also remove the "uhs"):

BIDEN: Hello, Mr. President. How are you?

NIXON: Senator, I know this is a very tragic day for you, but I wanted you to know that all of us here at the White House are thinking of you and praying for you and also for your two children. I understand that you were on the Hill at the time and your wife was just driving by herself.

BIDEN: Yes, that’s correct.

NIXON: So, I mean looking at it as you must in terms of a future, because you, you have the great fortune of being young...I remember I was two years older than you when I went to the House. But the main point is, you can remember that she was there when you won a great victory, and you enjoyed it together. And now I’m sure that she’ll be watching you from now on. Good luck to you.

BIDEN: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you for your call. I appreciate it.