by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Joe Biden is at it again, accusing the president\u2019s opponents of hoping for bad news and the Republicans in particular of rooting for dismal economic reports, by virtue of opposing legislation of the sort they supposedly earlier would have supported. I am sure, as in every campaign, there are such hyper-partisans. But like most Americans, conservatives have lots of friends and family members out of work, and, in the more important and larger sense, can see first-hand how 41 months of more than 8 percent unemployment (or even higher in dysfunctional states like California) have wrecked their communities. Wishing for a different approach is far more compassionate and disinterested than doubling down on the Greek model because of blinkered ideological orthodoxy. I don\u2019t know anyone who does not want the economy to rebound fast, especially given the toll it is taking on the larger society; I would have been delighted at news of a 5 percent unemployment rate, and 3.5 percent GDP growth \u2014 whatever the political ramifications.<\/p>\n But this charge of unpatriotic partisanship for political advantage is vintage Biden hypocrisy: Remember in 2007, at the moment in the spring and summer when the surge was being implementing and just starting to work, and thousands of American lives were at stake in implementing it? Biden and Harry Reid were assuring the world that the surge was already a failure; and in Biden\u2019s case, he kept at it all year long, especially before and during the September 2007 Petraeus hearings, when he kept insisting that trisecting Iraq was our only hope. In fact, as in the case of candidate Barack Obama, he would only cease his blanket dismissals of the surge in 2008, when conditions on the ground had so improved that the surge vanished as a campaign talking point and earlier denunciations were largely scrubbed from campaign websites.<\/p>\n Remember, Biden in August 2002 had been a vehement supporter of regime change in Iraq (\u201cI think Saddam either has to be separated from his weapons or taken out of power.\u201d), and voted to authorize Saddam\u2019s removal in October of that year. Would Vice President Joe Biden say that in 2007\u20132008 presidential candidate Joe Biden was not behind the national effort to secure Iraq through a surge (e.g., \u201cIn continuing the surge of forces for another six months, is that likely to change that reality? The conclusion I\u2019ve reached is no.\u201d)? And would he suggest further that candidate Joe Biden had assumed that bad news, and partisan commentary on supposedly bad news, would only enhance his own political fortunes? And would he say that such opportunism explained his abject reversal in damning something that he had earlier so wholeheartedly endorsed \u2014 and yet mysteriously would come full circle again to praise as perhaps his administration\u2019s \u201cgreatest achievement\u201d?<\/p>\n But, of course, to suggest all that, in Biden fashion, would be demagoguery of the worst sort.<\/p>\n Quite simply, sometime after January 2009 the commandments on the barn wall abruptly were altered, as things like filibusters, voting against the debt limit, or sharp dissent with an administration became cynical obstructionism, while everything from renditions, raising lots of campaign money, presidential golfing, supporting administration orthodoxy, and asserting executive privilege became correct.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Joe Biden is at it again, accusing the president\u2019s opponents of hoping for bad news and the Republicans in particular of rooting for dismal economic reports, by virtue of opposing legislation of the sort they supposedly earlier would have supported. I am sure, as in every campaign, there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146],"tags":[1014,1040,183,1052,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-ap","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13493,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-witch-hunt-trial-is-underway-in-the-u-s\/","url_meta":{"origin":645,"position":0},"title":"A \u201cWitch Hunt Trial\u201d Is Underway in the U.S.","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The Liberty Web It has been more than three months since the Biden administration took office. 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Biden was winning the nomination largely because he was not the socialist Bernie Sanders, who\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12259,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-mysterious-rise-fall-and-rise-of-joe-biden\/","url_meta":{"origin":645,"position":3},"title":"The Mysterious Rise, Fall, and Rise of Joe Biden","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review For\u00a0most of early 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden \u2014 the declared custodian of liberalism who would continue the Obama glory years \u2014 seemed unstoppable. He led all other rivals for months. Biden seemed above the fray. Many Democrats saw the pre-debate and pre-election\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13179,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-joe-biden-who-never-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":645,"position":4},"title":"The Joe Biden Who Never Was","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness These are the most radical first three months of a presidency since 1933, the most divisive\u2014and certainly the most dangerous. And its catalyst is the myth of ol\u2019 Joe from Scranton who has unleashed furies and hatreds never quite seen in modern American history.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13864,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-corner-trumpistics\/","url_meta":{"origin":645,"position":5},"title":"Eeyore\u2019 Corner: Trumpistics","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Image by smshoot @ Getty Images Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ VDH's Blade of Perseus Part One: Trump, RIP? In January-February 2021, Trump\u2019s future was problematic. He was kicked off social media. 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