Bush battles back against Biden

December 28, 2006

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), soon to be the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made it clear this week that he’s heard all he needs to hear about a plan for a military escalation in Iraq.

It’s an idea Biden made clear that he deplores, setting the stage for a bitter political battle between the new Democratic-controlled Congress and the White House over the proposal.

“I totally oppose the surging of additional American troops,” he said. “I think is the absolute wrong strategy.”

For the last six years, the Bush White House had no reason to care either way about whether Biden or other congressional Dems liked an idea or not. But with Biden about to take the gavel of a key Senate committee, the Bush gang is no longer in a position to reject Democratic positions as trivia. And, apparently, White House aides weren’t thrilled with Biden’s concerns.

The White House responded sharply Wednesday to a senior Democratic senator’s criticism of possible increases in the U.S. military deployment in Iraq as the president prepared to discuss the war today with top advisors.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel took issue with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said Tuesday that any troop increase would be “the absolute wrong strategy.”

“I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

The more I think about this, the less sense it makes.

The idea of sending tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq has been a major part of the policy debate for weeks. Biden is going to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been active in the debate over the future of the war for years.

Asked about the subject, Biden isn’t supposed to have an opinion? He shouldn’t make clear what he believes are good ideas or bad ideas?

Indeed, as the debate has unfolded in recent years, the president routinely expresses his support or opposition to ideas for Iraq, before formal proposals are unveiled, all the time. So what is the White House complaining about?

As Atrios put it:

According to the White House, no one is allowed to comment on hypothetical plans for Iraq until the Decider has Decided.

We are ruled by children.

Sad, but true.

Interesting

“I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

The only reason I can see for this statement is that The Deciderer has already decided to escalate. There would be no reason to say this if The Deciderer had decided against escalation, or was still decidering.

  • “I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

    They’re just trying to enforce the version of manners they’d like to see- admin speaks when it wants, everyone else shut up until we begin the conversation. It has nothing to do with politeness, it just gives them an advantage in the debate if they can control when you speak and they won’t let you speak until they speak first. He makes it sound like politness, though- sounds like a mild rebuke for a faux pas, right?

    Just enforcing orthodoxy. Dems are letting themselves get psyched out if they fall for it. You should recognize stuff like that and look on it with scorn. You should remember it when the same person who said it talks to you charmingly and politely, and you should hate what they’re doing all the more for trying to fool you now.

  • Senator Biden already knows what this mange-infested simian of a chimp executive opposes. The entire SFRC knows. The entire Senate knows, as does the House, the whole city of Washington, the entirely of the United States, and the whole freaking planet.

    The monkey is opposed to anything that deviates from “The Course.”

    And it’s also funny that the hack-ministration found it necessary to roll out a SnowFlake underling on this one. Tony’s credibility-deficit must be showing again….

  • As much as Biden annoyes me, and he does, I think Biden sees the “surge” for what it is. One last “push” before bush starts to bring the troops home in preperation for the 2008 election cycle. He recognizes that bush really doesn’t care about the Iraqi people and doesn’t think American and other coalition soldiers, as well as piles of money, should be sacrificed for republican party election games.

    While I am not against the “surge” (as long as “surge” doesn’t mean escalation) as a last good faith effort to do some good (however little) before getting mired further than we are. I don’t however, think this administration intentions are good. This is about timing the pull-out in order to aid the next republican presidential nominee. They want to do so in a way that they can point to this “surge” and make it look like they did everything they could but the Iraqi’s, terrorists, US media, Democrats, etc didn’t do their part because they wanted the US to fail.

  • On Swan’s comment – it would be impolite of Biden to blurt out what he is opposed to if the President is going to include him in the decision making. Ideally, Bush would sit down with the Dems, share what he has learned and then hammer out a consensus approach. But of course, Bush will ignore the Dems and present his decision as the “consensus view”. So, Biden is being pre-emptively rude because he knows that Bush will eventually be rude.

  • “I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

    By then, it would have been way too late. If there’s alot fserious oppo *now*, it’s — just faintly — possible that Bush may consider not escalating. But, once he’s announced he decided to escalate nothing, but *nothing*, will shift him. We’ve all seen what happens once he’s made his nut-mind up on something.

  • Good point Dennis #5. Where are the bi-partisan discussions?

    Bush can only “explain” his decisions. He can’t defend them.

  • Bourbon-brain Bush operates at the level of immaturity most of us went through around age five or six. In the game we’re playing now, Dumbya’s the Decider, see? It’s against the rules of Bush’s game for Joey to decide anything. Joey should take lessons from Scottie Stanzel and the rest of the WH staff in how the game is played. Otherwise Bourbon-brain may have to ask Uncle Limp Dick to snarl or something.

  • “I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

    This is your definition of “Battles Back”?

    Pretty lame if you ask me.

    But as others have said, the Bushites don’t really want to risk a “debate” about their policies. After all, those clever Bushite aides are telling the President both sides of every issue aren’t they? 😉

  • Biden: ” I oppose increasing troop levels.”

    Bush: “Hey, don’t criticize me before even hearing my plan.”

    Biden: “Well, what is your plan?”

    Bush: “Increasing troop levels”

    Biden: “(sigh) It’s like arguing with a ham sandwich.”

  • Remember this line from a few days ago?

    If we were in charge, we’d have our people too making boiler-plate comments and acting defensive. I think with the Republicans they have many more manipulative and deceptive people than we do, so it’s part of Occam’s Razor when analyzing their comments to look at how manipulation may be part of what’s going on.

    I think comment #5 is just wrong.

    So you can’t read too much into the comment as an indicator of anything in particular. Also, though, when Republicans say anything though, you can’t take it at face value and let it affect you. When you’re listening to a Republican politician that’s just not the type of person you’re talking to.

  • The recent talk of a “surge” of more US troops into Iraq is a classic trial balloon. It’s an idiotic idea, and Biden rightly took a shot at it. Now the White House is upset because Biden (and many others) are shooting at their trial balloon.

    Biden has offered his own plan for getting the US out of Iraq, which involves partitioning the three main factions. Bush claims to be reevaluating his options in Iraq, but he obviously doesn’t want to hear options from anyone outside his closed little circle.

    Once the “decider” has decided on his “way forward,” it will be too late for anyone to offer options or to criticize, because Bush is the “decider” and will have already decided. Turn up the heat, Senator Biden.

  • “I hope that Sen. Biden would wait to hear what the president has to say before announcing what he’s opposed to,” Stanzel said.

    Why bother waiting? Stanzel must be under the delusion that Bush’s new plan will be better and more effective than all his other plans.

    He will be wrong.

  • I’m not disavowing my first comment with my last two comments; it just seems to me like Scott Stanzel might be more like an unconscious manipulator than a conscious one- a little more a manipulative personality than someone who’s planning what he’s going to say. He may be thinking that he’s just trying to say something to get the press to shut up, but by second nature he know what kind of thing to say, because he’s so manupulative.

    The thing is, I can see Democratic spokesmen/women saying something like that, but I think our people would tend to say it more in circumstances where it really was unfair to come down one way or another in public without listening to what the President was going to say (whatever circumstances those might be).

    Obviously, as a White House spokesman, Stanzel thinks about what he’s going to say before he says it, but I’m just wondering the extent to which that’s true in this particular. The thing is that with a manipulative person, they’re manipulative when they’re thinking about it more and when they’re not, just how with a very non-manipulative person, they’re being honest whether they’re thinking much about what they’re saying or not. When you start to try to figure out ultimatums for a statement or an action though, you can really lead yourself off the course if the speaker or actor didn’t actually think they had a reason to have a meaning or purpose hidden behind what they said or did. So if we’re thinking a lot about why he said this we’re really doing ourselves a disservice if he wouldn’t have thought he needed to think a lot about what exactly to say to get the result the White House wanted in the situation.

  • All this talk of “surge” reminds me of the (probably imaginary) WWI news headline

    BRITISH PUSH
    BOTTLES UP
    GERMAN REAR

    As an erstwhile compositor I’d like it even if it were made up.

  • ***“(sigh) It’s like arguing with a ham sandwich.”***
    —————————————————————————-2Manchu

    I happen to know a ham sandwich or two. I personally like ham sandwiches. You have effectively insulted every ham sandwich in the world, by associating them with that freaking chimpanzee in the Oval Office.

    Have you no shame, 2M?

    *muffled laughter ensues….*

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