Barney Frank On Biden: 'He Can't Keep His Mouth Shut Or His Hands To Himself'

[karynnj]

38. I was annoyed hearing it too -- because I really don't see what the reason for it would be

I don't even know why he brought Biden up - I have no idea what the overall context was. I did hear that he said great things about Warren, and pretty good things about HRC. So, it could have been in the context of 2016 - where Biden has not ruled running.

I hate things said that diminish serious people, who have made and are working extremely hard making contributions for the country. One person, who for years had to deal with that, was Barney Frank, who was attacked for many personal flaws in addition to the right attacking him because he is gay. In spite of all that noise, he was able to work with Democrats and Republicans over the years as a very effective, brilliant law maker, but it had to have some cost.

As to Biden's contributions to the Obama administration, I think that it may be at least a generation before there can be the kind of objective analysis that really can look at what happened 2009-2017. Before then, I expect we will get many many books - written from many vantages, each trying to distance the writer from anything considered a failure and claiming maximum credit for anything potentially considered an accomplishment. (Note we already have books/interviews from HRC, Gates, Panetta - and likely more that I have forgotten.) Long after these books, written with a vested interest to enhance the author's legacy, there will be serious scholarly books written.

At this point, we know many things that Biden was assigned as the lead on - including Iraq (2009 - at least 2012), managing many elements of the stimulus program. To me, it seems that Biden's strongest legacy will be - surprisingly, given his decades on SFRC - on what he helped Obama do domestically (though not on the signature healthcare issue)

The one thing that seems almost a lost opportunity is that he seemed to have been constrained from doing the things he recommended for Iraq in 2007 - ie a regional conference that could have transformed Iraq to a country with three relatively autonomous sections - Sunni, Kurd and Shiite. However, he - not HRC - was given the lead on Iraq - so an answered question is did Biden himself reject what had been his 2007 position. (Even though her people have tried to take BOTH credit and distance her from how things were done - ie She claims to have led in ending the two wars (Iraq, Afghanistan), but she personally in her Goldberg Atlantic article argued that what we did in Iraq and Syria was something she argued against - preferring a more hawkish position. ( We do know that Biden was against the Afghan surge and HRC for it -- and it pretty much failed. (I think the way we are leading against ISIS is very informed by the failure of that surge -- most noticeably in arguing that it should not be US troops on the ground. This is NOT just so we are spared the deaths, but it was clear in Afghanistan that we COULD clear areas, but in many areas, the Afghanis were not able to keep and govern the areas when the US withdrew. )

However, the ONE thing that I am 100% certain of is that when the accomplishments and mistakes are seriously assessed, NO ONE will spend a lot of time arguing that Biden hugged too many women or that he could not control his mouth. The ONLY times the latter would matter is if they made him ineffective in working with some leader. The only example for which I ever heard that said was Kharzi - but there he is among a LONG list of Americans, including the top diplomat Holbrooke. (In reality the only American who really succeeded on getting him to do anything big we wanted was John Kerry -who with enormous effort got him to follow his country's election law (something HRC claims SHE did in her book) and to negotiate a SOFA that was then taken by Kharzi to the Loyal Jurga.) I doubt ANY historian would blame Biden for not being able to work with Kharzi - they will blame Kharzi.

I would note that Frank was speaking of as a "politician". While admitting that Biden is loquacious, I think BOTH of these issues are media driven. Every politician misspeaks - especially in a campaign where they speak up to 16 hours a day. Whether they are labeled "not spontaneous", " wooden", "gaffe prone" or "aloof" OR ("well spoken" "thoughtful&quot , "careful to not misstate things" "on message" or ( "having gravitas" dignified) --- pair the negative with the positive may tell more about the media than the candidate. As to the hugging - there are cultural differences and, again, different people are treated differently. ie When Bill Clinton (even with all his baggage) was hugging everyone he met - it showed that he was connected, outgoing, charismatic and generally well loved by the media. Yet, Biden, with absolutely NO such scandal ever in his entire career is called "creepy" recently when swearing a new Senator in? Biden may be many things, but he is a good family man.