Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Oh Boy was I right. The NYT and nobody in this thread had the faintest idea what he said. Sadly, people seem only able to hear what they believe others will say instead of what they actually say. The art of listening and parsing words is obviously dead or rare. Sorry Corn, I guess I'm just plain gifted..............
I suppose I could say what he said, but why bother. But I see no reason to believe that if you can't understand Biden you WOULD understand my translation of him.
I interpreted Biden differently than most in this thread seem to have.
I knew better than to say everybody was wrong and I especially had in mind your post which I didn't carefully study since I usually agree with most all of what you say. I just got sloppy and lazy.
C: It seemed to me that he was simply offering a near non-answer to the interviewer trying to get him to take responsibility for Israel's actions.
M: I saw Snuffleupagus playing the part of an antagonistic journalist who presents the talking points of the side opposing Biden as a means of provoking news worthy dynamic salable television. It has to be adversarial to sell or keep people from changing channels. He was hitting Biden with Republican talking points, in other words. So Biden's job was to remain neutral in the eyes of Israel and Iran while fending the criticism off.
C: He made a very generic statement about Israel being sovereign - they can choose their own policy on any nation, and every sovereign Nation has that right.
M: Wouldn't offend Israel by telling we will nuke them if they nuke Iran, eh? What a surprise.
C: He didn't say the US would not oppose any policy they choose, he said he will not speculate about specific responses to hypothetical situations.
M: I think what he said was that we WILL pursue our own interests and the question was over granting Israel overflight rights in Iraq, that we will not grant that right if it is not in our interest to.
C: He did make one point, which is that while Israel has the right to choose a different policy than the US has chosen - diplomatic engagement, not attack - it's not the US policy.
M: At least not while we are willing to negotiate and we are willing and that supporting an Israeli attack would not help that effort.
C: Any president/VP has to dance around the issue of the US-Israel relationship, given all the sensitivities from our huge arming of them, to Muslim and Israeli sensitivities.
M: And the dance has cost a lot of money and our patience may be wearing thin.
C: So what was Biden's point? I think it was to defend Obama's handling of the Iranian election and not get involved in the reporter's Israeli topics.
M: Yes, very far from saying we would not stop an Israeli attack.
C: I did not hear the 'We welcome Israel to attack if they so choose' message some seem to.
M: I think it was even stronger, that we will work against what isn't in out interest even if we can't actually force the Israelis to not do what they want. We can get in their way.
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