Clinton Was Never Intended to Be the Democrat Nominee

From The American Thinker Blog:

Here is my reasoning: realizing that the evidence against her could rise to the level of treason, Secretary Clinton has struck a bargain with the Obama White House that in return for bowing out at or near the convention, she will receive a full pardon in order to ensure that she will never see the inside of a prison cell.

She takes the slings and arrows, exhausting the opposition research budgets of Republican campaigns, leaving V.P. Biden and Sen. Warren largely immune from scrutiny during these long months of primaries and caucuses.

By the time she begs off the nomination, citing medical issues, the Republicans will have barely three months to investigate and counter the actual nominees, Biden and Warren.

Those among the electorate who are itching to make history with a female president will believe themselves to be doing precisely that by voting for a Biden/Warren ticket, albeit with a four-year "on-the-job training" period.

Elizabeth Warren is easily as "progressive" as Clinton (likely having more in common with Bernie Sanders) but doesn't carry the ethical corruption baggage that engulfs the wife of Monica Lewinsky's ex-boyfriend.

Joe Biden doesn't carry the intellectual heft necessary to attain the presidency as a stand-alone candidate, but teamed with a soon to be historical figure in Warren, his star shines far more brightly.

Clinton avoids prison and walks away with hundreds of millions in campaign donations. Obama gets a third term via Biden, and Democrats everywhere get to gush about their tolerance and forward thinking by electing the first female vice president/president in waiting.

This is about as Machiavellian as you can get and highly plausible.

How Joe Biden Broke the Court

From Commentary via H/T at Instapundit:

In today’s New York Times Vice President Joe Biden lays out an argument for why Senate Republicans should surrender and let President Obama create a liberal majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. But in order to do that, he must explain why Americans should ignore a 1992 speech he made on the floor of the U.S. Senate in which he demanded that the first President Bush wait until after the next presidential election before nominating anyone for the court should an opening occur before November of that year. In other words, faced with almost exactly the same situation as we have now — with the White House and the Senate controlled by opposing parties — Biden thought that it would be wrong to drag the country through a divisive confirmation fight in the middle of a presidential election.

But if Biden were really interested in the truth he would have to admit that the problem goes back further than 1992. It was, after all, Joe Biden who did as much as anyone to break the court and to ensure that all nominations will be bitter partisan fights.

Though the man sitting next to him in the photo atop Jonathan Tobin’s Commentary article deserves plenty of blame as well.

What, A hypocritical democrat!!! How can that be?!?!?!

Biden 1992 redux -- I’d “highly recommend” not nominating a SCOTUS replacement in an election year

From Hot Air:

After video from 1992 emerged of Joe Biden demanding that George H. W. Bush refrain from filling any Supreme Court openings in an election year, the current VP insisted that critics took his remarks out of context. “One excerpt” from a lengthy Senate speech did not give “an accurate description of my views” on Supreme Court openings, noting that the speech also “urged the Senate and White House to work together to overcome partisan differences.” Biden somehow overlooked that his own suggestion at avoiding those partisan differences was to put off any nomination at all, but Biden and his defenders suggested that the whole idea was an off-the-cuff Biden riff on the Senate floor, not a real policy statement.

Perhaps they might have a little trouble with that argument after reading this interview Biden gave the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne in June 1992. Not only did Biden urge Bush not to send over a nominee, but as then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden said he would ask the Senate to sit on it until a new president took office:

This proves that Biden is an idiot or a liar.

Well, actually both.

The Week in Pictures - Pope and Dope Edition:

From the guys at Powerline Blog:

Claim: Obama Ready to Endorse Biden -- With Conditions

Via Instapundit:

“The talk in Democratic Party circles is that Barack Obama has told Joe Biden that he is prepared to endorse him for president if, in return, Biden promises to let Obama have a final say in the choice of his vice presidential running mate.”

Hmm.

Deval Patrick? WTF!!!

Warren, Lizzy Warren? makes so much more sense ....... Come on down!

The Week In Pictures -- Fiorina Trumps Edition

From the guys at Powerline Blog:

Is Joe Biden Really the Answer to Democrats’ Problems?

From Jonah Goldberg at National Review:

The wheels haven’t come off Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bus quite yet, but they’re getting wobblier. Hence the Joe Biden boomlet. As a columnist, never mind as a conservative, I think it’s a fantastic idea. (A Biden vs. Trump debate would cause a national popcorn shortage.) But is Biden really the answer to the Democrats’ problem?

That depends.

As with any malady, the right treatment hinges on the correct diagnosis ............................ Biden is a treatment for one symptom, not the whole disease.
.......................

So let’s sum up the symptoms. The country is in a very sour mood and searching for change. Populist anti-establishment discontent runs like a prairie fire through the grass roots of both parties. The incumbent president is polarizing and unpopular. The Democratic bench has been cleared of viable young alternatives who could successfully promise a major course correction. (Greenfield notes that when Obama leaves office, he’ll pretty much be the only Democratic leader not eligible for Social Security.) The Democratic front-runner is a stiff, inauthentic establishment figurehead.

And the solution to these problems is . . . Joe Biden, the 72-year-old sitting vice president who ran unsuccessfully for the job twice? Really?

Yes, I agree, Biden running would be amusing and will provide a constant flow of gaffs for the late night comedians. But it really does show how decimated Obama has left his party in after 3 elections cycles.

Democrats See No Irony in Running Against Themselves

From John Hinderaker at The Powerline Blog:

Today Joe Biden delivered a populist oration on the occasion of Labor Day. Biden ripped the stagnant American economy of recent years:

“I’m mad, I’m angry,” Biden thundered, attacking the U.S. economy as “devastating for workers.”

That’s what we’ve been saying for the last 6 1/2 years. Where has Biden been all this time? Oh yeah, that’s right–he’s been the vice president. The economy is lousy for most workers because of a lack of economic growth. In my view, slow growth is largely the consequence of the administration’s economically ignorant policies, in particular, over-regulation. But for the unsought (by the administration) fracking revolution, conditions would be even worse.

So how can the vice president run against his own administration? Biden is particularly angry about the tax code:

“Let me tell you something, man,” Biden said. “The tax code’s not fair. The wealthy aren’t paying their fair share.”

.................. Joe Biden’s party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House from 2009 until 2011. They could pass anything they wanted to, and did: Obamacare and the “stimulus,” in particular. If they wanted changes to the tax code, they should have enacted them. And has Biden been proposing any changes to the tax code during the 6 1/2 years he has been the number two man in the Obama administration? Not that I’ve noticed.

So, Joe is blaming Republicans, even though his party was in charge of the White House ...... Deflect, deny, distract. SOP for the Democratic Part.

Will Joe Biden Have To Answer For His Long Record of Terrible Decisions?

From The Federalist: IN a word, NO!

So let’s for a moment imagine that Biden is a principled politician and wouldn’t say absolutely anything just to become president — this would be the third time he’d be running for the position. And let’s, for a moment, concede that Biden, after his flirtation with Elizabeth Warren and hiring of new staff, is the sort of candidate that can knock off the front-runner. But then let’s suspend our disbelief and pretend the media will hold the new candidate responsible for his previous positions and votes at least as strictly as they hold Marco Rubio accountable for his wife’s parking tickets.

If they did, they would find that Joe Biden has had, in some sense, more consequential conservative votes on record than any candidate running for president from either party. Or a better way to put it: his greatest legacy is a lack of coherent philosophy and a ton of politically convenient grandstanding.

Expecting the Drive-By Media, let alone the Democrat Party, to hold Biden to ANY standard is a bridge too far. The one and only time, in the last 30 years, he's been held accountable for anything he's said was in 1988 Presidential Campaign and the plagiarism of Neil Kinnock's speech.

Why Obama is torpedoing Hillary Clinton

From Monica Crowley at The Washington Times:

There is only one person who controls Hillary Clinton's fate, and it isn't Hillary Clinton.
...................

She and her team have, of course, reverted to form, blaming everyone but themselves: a "right-wing conspiracy," The New York Times, overzealous investigators. What they are missing, however, is the one figure who wants her taken out politically, and who has the power to do it.
...................

If Mr. Obama does not want an investigation to go forward, it does not go forward. Witness the scandals involving the Internal Revenue Service, Benghazi, Veterans Administration and Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning. In each case, Mr. Obama claimed he learned about the scandal "from the news." (That's interesting coming from a guy who claims he only rarely watches or reads said "news.")

He then expressed his "outrage" and vowed to "get to the bottom" of each scandal. (Of course, it's tough to "get to the bottom" of something when you are the bottom of it.)

In those cases, he protesteth too much. His faux outrage was a "tell" that he had no intention of investigating. In Mrs. Clinton's case, he's been quiet. Too quiet. That's a "tell" that he wants this investigation pursued, likely to the point of charging her.

He has others talking, however. Each week, there are damaging new leaks about her personal email and server: that despite her denials, she did, in fact, have top-secret and other highly classified materials on the server, that the FBI is conducting a criminal probe and the bureau is "optimistic" it can retrieve the wiped data, that she may have had a second server, that her top aides — Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan — are now also in investigators' sights.

Mr. Obama is a clever dark knight: he's not just going after the queen. He's going after her court, too.

I agree with this analysis so far, but......

This brings us to the certain presidential candidacy of Vice President Joe Biden, the one person who can effectively give Mr. Obama that third term. Indications are that he is seriously contemplating it, making initial plans, reaching out to potential donors, and benefiting from the Obamaites whipping up Biden buzz. The White House is even floating the idea of one-term for Mr. Biden, to reassure voters that they wouldn't be making a long-term commitment (even though, as an extension of Obama's presidency, it would be.)
...................

Once Mr. Biden joins the race, he will enjoy the full backing of Mr. Obama. With Mrs. Clinton gone, however, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will have to make it up to Democratic women and the radical left, which is currently flirting with socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.

There is only one person who kills both birds with one stone: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The Democratic ticket will be Joe Biden-Elizabeth Warren. That's what Mr. Obama wants. And what Mr. Obama wants, Mr. Obama gets.

This makes a lot of sense. However, a few problem. Uncle Joe is well, just dumb, who shoots off the hip too much and can't control his mouth.

The other issue is Elizabeth "Fauxcohontas" Warren. From being a fake indian to a 1% who became wealth defending big corperations from the masses. Her candidacy would never survive the opposition reseach.

The Write Stuff? -- Why Biden's plagiarism shouldn't be forgotten.

From Slate:

Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else's words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn't seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate ...... In 1987, before Biden quit the race, he called the incidents "a tempest in a teapot." Although most reporters disagreed then, at least enough to pursue the story, they seem now—perhaps jaded by two decades of scandal-mongering—to have come around to Biden's view.
.............

If that wasn't bad enough, Biden admitted the next day that while in law school he had received an F for a course because he had plagiarized five pages from a published article in a term paper that he submitted.
.............

For all these disclosures, Biden remained unbowed. "I'm in the race to stay, I'm in the race to win, and here I come," he declared. That meant, of course, that his days were numbered. .......... While lashing out at the audience member, Biden defended his academic credentials by inflating them, in a fashion that was notably unbecoming and petty for a presidential candidate.

"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect," Biden sniped at the voter. "I went to law school on a full academic scholarship." That claim was false, as was another claim, made in the same rant, that he graduated in the top half of his law-school class. Biden wrongly stated, too, that he had earned three undergraduate degrees, when in fact he had earned one—a double major in history and political science. Another round of press inquiries followed, and Biden finally withdrew from the race on Sept. 23.

This only reminds everyone that the Dear Leader picked someone who academic track record may actually be even less stellar than his own.

The irony. We have two of the biggest academic frauds to have ever been elected to office running the country.

Why Democrats insist on lying about how ‘poor’ they are

From the NY Post via Instapundit:

Hillary Clinton claimed that, at the moment she and her husband were signing up for $18 million in book deals, that they were “dead broke.”

Harry Reid (who lives in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel) said liberals are getting bullied by Republican billionaires but the Democratic Party “doesn’t have many billionaires” behind it.

Joe Biden (family earnings: $407,000 last year plus a free house, driver, meals, etc.) claims he “I don’t own a single stock or bond. . . . I have no savings accounts . . . I’m the poorest man in Congress.” (Triple fail: Joe isn’t poor, isn’t in Congress and wouldn’t be the poorest member of it if he were.)

Right here in New York, we’ve learned that City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, the daughter of a wealthy doctor who left a $6.7 million inheritance, took advantage of a no-interest loan intended for underprivileged New Yorkers to buy a Harlem townhouse. Then she forgot to declare the rental income on required city disclosure forms. The townhouse you and I helped buy her for $240,000 is today worth $1.2 million.

The more Democrats insist on their proletarian cred, the more absurd it gets. They’re no longer just holier than thou: Now they’re prolier than thou.

They believe the rules don't apply to them.

Remember When Republican President FDR Commemorated the 1963 Moon Landing by Declaring ‘Peace In Our Time?’

From Ed Driscoll of PJ Media:

Well, you remember man landing on the moon in 1963 at least, don’t you? Obama’s ghost-tweeter apparently does. As Moe Lane writes, “If Barack Obama wants to do something about wage inequality, he should start with…the White Houseitself.” And then regarding when we actually landed on the moon, “Here, let me show the President how to check things like this.”

There’s a strange and recurring symptom with this administration that on the one hand keeps making these gaffes, and on the other, thinks of itself as being chockablock full with, much more so than Enron, “The Smartest Guys in the Room” — including Barry himself.

Especially, Barry himself:

“I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to give up control when that’s all I’ve known.” Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

But these weird lapses in what should be easily understood American and world history keep occurring. Joe Biden — who definitely thinks of himself as the Smartest Guy in the Room — just ask him — had one of the first big whoppers. During the fall of 2008, his mouth once again failed to sync with the gearworks of his brain, and he praised Franklin Roosevelt’s TV performance in 1929 when the stock market crashed. Never mind that in 1929, Herbert Hoover was president, and the handful of Jurassic American TVs then in existence were running Felix the Cat test patterns — that’s how Joe remembers it.

How the Dear Leader BELIEVES he's better than anyone at everything, especially since he hasn't ever accomplished anything.......

Like Ron Burgandy, anything you put into Barry’s teleprompter or on the page in front of him, he’ll read. (Including how he ate a dog, with no reaction or remorse in his voice.) But it’s particularly amusing to watch someone once declared “the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar” at the apex of hopenchange by one his toadies to apparently have very little conception of basic American history.

stunning, just drones on and on

The Week in Pictures -- Crimea River Edition

From the guys at Powerline Blog: