In Politics
The BBC headline writer referred to it as a Hamlet Moment – Joe Biden: Will he take on Hillary Clinton or not? Very unlikely as the first debate would have been the best entry point for a real run, and CNN made provisions for him, but he showed no interest.
Israel’s Netanyahu urges talks to calm Jerusalem violence. The Palestinians aren’t going to play along anymore. Netanyahu has not honored any of his promises to or agreements with the Obama administration, so Abbas has no reason to believe that he would honor an agreement with the Palestinians.
5 comments
If either Sanders or Clinton had fallen flat on their face at the first debate, Joe might have jumped in. But they both had good debates, showing both substance and style (albeit different for each), and Democrats in general appear satisfied with the current choices in the race. Joe ain’t comin’. You can bank on that.
Talking about style, Clinton seemed quite professional and wonkish. Bernie Sanders seemed like that cranky Jewish grandfather that you never had, the one who insists on telling you all the stuff you don’t want to hear but that you need to hear. I can see why the millennials are so enamored of Bernie, they know they’re fscked, Bernie’s the only candidate honest enough to tell them why. But I don’t know how well that shtick is gonna work with the voting public as a whole. The American public has a long-held aversion to being told unpleasant truths that they don’t want to hear :(.
I’ve been reading the canonical book about Bernie (written by someone named Tasini, which I keep misreading as “tahini”) and I have real doubts anyone as candid as Bernie is about all the hard problems can get elected president. I say that even as a Bernie supporter, and by “supporter” I include token financial contributions. (May as well give it away now, before both Dems and GOPers take away… no, not my guns, my SocSec.)
Even so, it is such a pleasure to support a genuine progressive for president and not even be forced to party-jump to do it. If it’s only until the middle of primary season, I can live with that; it’s the first time since LBJ that I’ve had a progressive potential prez to support.
@BadTux… The difference between rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans: Dems want pie-in-the-sky, while Repub’s, to all evidence, prefer pie-in-the-face. <ba-da-boom! />
The ‘centrists’ suffer from believing that there is substance in all of the GOP outrages, so they were certain that Clinton would definitely get knocked out of contention, and Bernie couldn’t possibly win as a real progressive, not running as just a liberal, but as a SOCIALIST!!! Joe Biden had to run to save the party … except the Party is sick of the centrists and Blue Dogs.
Not to mention that Joe Biden has already run twice for President and nobody liked him. Why would anybody like him a third time? He’s the crazy uncle in the Democratic closet, the one that gets let out from time to time, says some crazy foot-in-mouth stuff, and promptly gets shoved back in. Vice President was the perfect job for him because nobody pays attention to the Vice President. President… not so much.
Joe is the favorite of the “No Labels” village people, not the Democratic base who remember how he screwed them on credit card debt and bankruptcy.