World

Biden Hits a Raw Nerve Rather Than the Russian Reset Button

by sara star | July 28, 2009 at 01:02 pm

230 views | 32 Recommendations | 8 comments

Since Stupid seems to be the theme of the day, shall we mention the honorable USA vice-president Joe Biden. Chosen for his "foreign policy expertise" and warm smile, here is his flavor of stupid implying "Russia you are losers."

I think I just heard the reset button with Russia wail in mechanical failure.

Clinton though trying to make amends was once heard implying "Putin has no soul"... see video.

Hillary Clinton said that Vladimir Putin has no soul and he answered her that at least the state figure should have a head .

Did anyone ever tell them diplomacy = democracy.

By the way, Mr Medvedev may we fly our military aircraft over your airspace if we say please? Sure... no problem??

(Biden) appallingly ill-advised statements over the weekend about Russia....
... "They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable."

Biden was just calling it as he sees it on Russia, but to upend the contents of his brainpan in front of a Wall Street Journal reporter, on the heels of a diplomatic initiative by the Obama administration that sent both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Moscow bearing "reset buttons" and promises to open a new era of mutual respect and improved relations, was immensely counter- productive.

...Clinton tried to smooth things over by calling Russia a "great power" in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." But the damage was done.

...Yet Obama's principal rationale for choosing Biden was that the former senator's foreign policy expertise would make up for his own lack of diplomatic experience. This can't be what the president had in mind.

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albertacowpoke

at 13:33 on July 28th, 2009

I think Joe Biden was born with "foot in mouth" and has kept it there permanently. In other words "How to make friends and influence people". Didn't he make some smart remark about Russian women too?

Paschen

at 15:59 on July 28th, 2009

Nothing has changed in the US, sadly so.

sara star

at 04:47 on July 30th, 2009

sara star

at 16:36 on July 28th, 2009

An interesting comment July 25th, 2009 by Daniel Larison in Pravda.com

Biden's comments lend more Russian support for Putin's popularity.

Biden says that the U.S. is underestimating the strength of its own hand, but what he underestimates is how deeply Moscow resents U.S. interference in its neighborhood. Biden misunderstands that past Russian economic strength did not create Russian attitudes about its near-abroad and U.S. policies, nor did it foster the rising nationalism in the country. These things were stoked during the ’90s, during Russia’s last period of serious weakness, and merely received greater expression over the last eight or nine years. Most Russians saw the ’90s as a period when the West took full advantage of Russian weakness to their detriment; the appeal of Putinism was that it would make sure that this did not happen again. Biden is pledging to do the same thing to Russia that Clinton did in the ’90s: combine phony expressions of goodwill with pursuit of a consistently anti-Russian agenda.

albertacowpoke

at 16:45 on July 28th, 2009

Larison has it about right.

158

at 13:40 on July 29th, 2009

Maybe Obama should send Biden to the south pole for a few months,

sara star

at 04:47 on July 30th, 2009

duo

at 22:13 on July 29th, 2009

My goodness! Must have been a bad coffee morning. The advantage in writing rather than talking is that one can erase and re-state what is written. Writers can soften what is written to the point of proper decorum that may be missing in an initial response. I could not be a diplomat or a politician. It seems a very tough job in that once something is said, recorded, and broadcast, although remarks may not be exactly well put or even reflect one's true feelings, they are out there!