Good news: Joe Biden gets a Democratic fundraising letter out despite the radiation, economy and new war

With the Japan earthquake and the devastating tsunami and the radiation leaks going global and the United Nations suggesting interested members start a war in Libya and American troops in two other conflicts and the immense federal government now budgeting in 21-day chunks with a colossal deficit and President Obama with his family offering toasts all over South America urging Brazil to drill offshore while stifling domestic production back home and rising bilateral congressional unhappiness with Obama's commencing military action on Libya whatever that goal is, some Americans appear confused and anxious.

How silly is that? Obama has explained everything to the president of Turkey.

Thanks to Vice President Joe Biden, now back from Moldova with his wife and granddaughter, things have returned to normal in American politics. Biden has issued another of this administration's clarion calls for someone to do something to boost college graduation rates.

And with the pitch-perfect timing of this crowd, he's sent out a fresh appeal for political donations from Democrats.

Biden, who's off to Florida today for two events on behalf of threatened Sen. Bill Nelson, also wants true Americans to send a whole bunch of fresh money to....

...-- no, not the Japanese relief fund -- but to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It's urgent because the VP wants the reported totals to look good when the first quarter ends next week. Because otherwise the media will write about support already fading for the 2012 Democratic ticket just because it started another little war. And the weaker Obama looks now, the more likely he could get a hopeless but annoying nomination challenge from his left next year.

The need for all this money, Biden says, is because Democrats "face the toughest electoral climate we've seen in a long time."

What?! How could that possibly be? Democrats in trouble? After all Joe's countless promises about jobs? And all that Democrats have done to the country the last two years?

How could Americans, watching all this, possibly get the idea that the Dynamic Democratic Duo are incoherent leaders focusing laser-like on travel and parties and everything but Job One?

You know, that thingy that has to do with millions of Americans losing their jobs and only thousands finding another, the topic that's been the prime public concern for every minute of the Obama administration's 792 days in office? The issue that had a little something to do with the historic shift in party control of the House on Nov. 2?

This administration has talked about jobs all the time. It's thrown a Chicago fortune at the issue. What else could American voters expect them to do?

There's sure not much yet from Republicans either; they're over on the other side of the playground arguing over who'll be Team Captain.

First, let's clear up the Libya situation. No, there is no exit strategy yet. But that, as our pal Jimmie Bise points out, is merely because there was no entrance strategy.

The military is under the impression that the point of the Libya mission (titled Odyssey Dawn apparently because Candy Barr and Blaze Starr were already taken) is to ground Kadafi's air force so the rebels, their families and herds are not wiped out by the colonel's threatened cleansing. That puts us on the de facto side of the Benghazi tribes.

But there may be something of a disconnect in the chain of command. The president has said Kadafi "needs to go." And he appeared to confirm that in a White House description of Obama's Monday phone conversation with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan.

Best we can tell, confused Americans will be happy to know, the Turkish leader and the Nobel Peace Prize winner agree on pretty much everything about the fighting in Libya including "the goal of helping provide the Libyan people an opportunity to transform their country, by installing a democratic system that respects the people’s will."

Afterward, a White House aide clarified that: "it's the Libyan people who are going to make their determinations about the future. We support their aspirations, their democratic aspirations, and have stated that Gaddafi should go because he's lost their confidence."

Which sure sounds like ousting the current leader, as amazing as his hat collection is. Nor does it sound much like watching the tribal shootout from 10,000 feet.

The stickiness comes over the real possibility that the Tripoli crowd's tanks can outgun the Benghazi guys' pickups, even without Kadafi air attacks. So, Kadafi then thumbs his nose at the international community's belated attempt to oust him. Or there's a bloody stalemate.

Then what? We provide air cover for an ongoing civil war? For how long? Wasn't the civil war-ness what the Real Good Talker made such a big deal out of denouncing in all his speeches on the high-handed perversity of the American regime change intervention in Iraq?

Perhaps the president will find a little time to talk more about this with his own country after last night's presidential toasts in El Salvador and before his upcoming overseas trip to Ireland, Britain and France. The White House has announced, by the way, that Obama has now added Poland to that itinerary.

It's just so confusing.

Related:

If it's Monday, Obama must be toasting in Chile

Obama in Brazil writes Congress: FYI, we attacked Libya a couple of days ago

With Obama in Brazil & Biden fundraising, U.S. voters give them record low approval on economy

In Brazil, Obama orders attack on Libya: 'Actions have consequences'

In Rio, Obama marks Iran's Nowruz holiday again

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Jose Cabezas / AFP / Getty Images (El Salvador student protests U.S. attacks on Libya); Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press (Obama toasts); Nancy A. Youssef / MCT (Libyans stand atop wreckage of crashed U.S. fighter jet, 3-21-11); Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images (Michelle Obama drinks toast in Santiago Monday night and then, bottom, the National Palace in El Salvador Tuesday night).

Comments

[thebardofmurdock]

The JoeBidewonky
With apologies to Lewis Carroll, author of The Jabberwocky

’Twas springtime, and the budget talks
Did seize and stalemate in D.C.
All tumult were the Democrats
With the dour Tea Party.

“Beware the GOP, my son,
Their laws that lop, their rules that clip!
Beware the freshmen reps, and shun
The malefic party whip!”

He put his V.P. in the fore;
Long time the faux pas king, who talks,
And summons love from the press core:
He’ll slay those budget hawks!

And as in nimble thought Joe stood,
The gaffe machine, amid the throng,
And promised that he likely would
Ensure it comes out wrong!

Spend more! Spend more! And tax ’til poor!
The V.P.’s plan went just like that!
He long droned on, and then he donned
His union campaign hat.

“And hast thou slain the Tea Party?
You have failed me? O heavy crown!
O mournful day! What foul play!”
The guv’ment must shut down.

’Twas springtime, and the budget talks
Did seize and stalemate in D.C.
All tumult were the Democrats
With the dour Tea Party.

thebardofmurdock.blogspot.com

[kym beautow]

This is part of Obama's agenda. His plan is to destroy America as we know it. Nothing he does surprises me.

[Marlowe Hampton]

Where is the commentary on Republican congressional fundraising letters that were sent out recently? You know, the same Republicans who urged the President to get involved in Libya, then had the nerve to ask what the US is doing in Libya?