Reply #16: Not to mention - if you are arguing that you have communication skills, [View All]

what is even meant by " Kerry couldn't communicate unjustly". The literal meaning would seem to be that Kerry could say only just things, though in context it can not mean that. I tried to figure out what he meant - and can't. Is he saying that unjustly, Kerry was considered unable to communicate it? The problem with that is that it also makes no sense. If the view is unjust (or untrue - which removes the moral tone but might make more sense), why repeat it as a reason for losing. After this sentence - he has no room to talk about Kerry's communication skills. I've heard both speak in prepared and unprepared comments - IMHO, he should wish he had Kerry's skills.

My guess is that every Democrat will likely come close to using Kerry's well spoken line that the War on terrorism will be mostly coordinating law enforcement and intelligence with other countries and only occasionally military, using special forces to go after concentrations of terrorists - often with cooperation of the host country. Kerry did communicate this. People were too fearful to believe it.

What Biden could say, is that Kerry was right on how to make us safer from terrorism, but the country was too traumatized to accept Kerry's vision of a world where terrorism, though still a threat, would be minimized to a point where it wasn't a dark cloud hanging over everyone. The fact that Kerry DID succeed - even with the paltry help given by the media - in communicating this, is that in 2006, you had people like George Will saying that Kerry was right. This said they heard him, but couldn't accept that an inherently optimistic solution like this was possible. They were not ready to believe the nightmare could end.

I heard Biden say this same thing on one of the talk shows a month or so ago - and was angry then - that he is repeating it means this
is a theme he wants to use. There are 2 things that are weird about it. The first is why he includes Gore, when national security was not a 2000 issue and 2) why he wants to diminish Kerry when it would be more effective to position himself as being the one who could take up Kerry's position that people are now ready to accept. He could say he agreed with it in 2004. In fact, everyone in the party agreeing with Kerry's position should be claiming that.

This tacky comment - that last time was combined with another comment that took most of the attention - something like -that people did not see Gore or Kerry as really respecting their beliefs when they attended other churches (unlike himself and Bill Clinton) diminishes Biden. Both this comment on nation security and the church comment are accepting RW memes and are gratuitous insults to Gore and Kerry.

It also is ironic that in the last debate, Biden chose a part of the Bible as his favorite that criticizes the Pharisees. In the first century when this was written, this was seen as criticizing the rabbinical Jews in comparison with the Christians. In 2004, Kerry used a verse from John that had the same connotation that faith had to result in actions to be genuine. The meaning of Kerry's chosen verse is clear and it could easily be generalized to be universal. Biden's explanation of the verse he chose was so unclear, that Russert was at a loss for what it meant and Chris Matthews, graduate of a Jesuit college (Holy Cross), said it spoke against the Pharisees, who sat in the front row and were the elites. (I suspect Biden was going for the idea that it rejects the public display of religion over actually living it - but I don't know that from his incoherent explanation.) So, Kerry beats him both in speaking clearly and in not picking one of the passages in the New testament that is interpreted by some Jews as not respecting how their spiritual ancestors practiced religion. (Also, anyone who read or listened to Kerry's Pepperdine speech would know the man is very religious. Biden claims to have been his friend for 30 years. I personally don't care whether Kerry or any other politician is religious - but I find it tacky that Biden validates RW memes that hurt us - when he has to know they are not true.)

Biden's willingness to diminish others to elevate himself also extended to being dishonest about Iraq policy. Last summer, he said on Bill Mahr's show that Kerry/Feingold did not have a diplomatic piece. It did, and in fact Kerry's amendment calling for a summit was passed (by voice vote) as part of the Defense authorization last year and, in spite of being significant, got almost NO press. Biden did this even though his own proposal was not in direct conflict with K/F. In fact his passed legislation merges Kerry's long proposed summit and Biden's partition idea. The new plan eliminated Kerry's objection to Biden because it gave the Iraqis the task of defining the partitions (states) and the roles of state and national government. Here is a link, both to Kerry's comments on Biden's amendment and Biden's very flattering comments on Kerry's role. (Warner at the end of Kerry's speech made the point that the Senate had already called for a summit.) http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/09/biden_gives_props_to_senator_k.html

It also causes me whip lash. Biden has repeatedly told stories or said things like this in the media about John Kerry, then he says extremely positive things that seem sincere in the Senate, where only us CSPAN addicts are. (In addition to the linked comments - Biden in a hearing on the impact of global warming on national security - that was requested by Kerry, said that Kerry had been speaking about these impacts for 15 years and they should have listened to him. What seems counterproductive is that Biden could position himself to get the Democrats who see Kerry's positions as having been correct. He was a lead surrogate on foreign policy and was good, when he controlled his own ego. Also, he got Kerry to co-sponsor his amendment. If he were to win the nomination, there are few people who could be as good as Kerry acting as a surrogate on this issue. Gratuitously attacking him - as he did here, is just stupid.

A bigger problem is that in both these cases where he compared himself as superior to Kerry and Gore, he never bothers to really express his own policy. This makes it very hard to even try to see whether he could communicate it better than they did. I really wish he hadn't done this because I really would like an experienced candidate who saw the world more like Kerry does, than like Clinton does in terms of foreign policy. Biden, I think is in between them. What it comes down to is that in 2004, though Biden made a comment that Kerry was a very classy guy, who had made many contributions that did not bear his name. the same can not be said of him. I want to like Biden - but every time he does something good - he follows it with something tacky like this.