Today, after reading a May 1, 2006 New York Times op-ed by current Vice President Joe Biden and Leslie Gelb criticizing Bush Two’s “stay the course” strategy in Iraq, and wanting to show Biden in a favorable light, your solitary reporter will now ever so briefly summarize the content of that 2006 op-ed. In it, Biden proposed that the three principal factions of Iraqi political life be re-arranged so that the Kurds, the Arab Sunnis, and the Arab Shiites each be given their separate autonomous areas so the country would not completely fall apart. Instead, after Barack Obama got himself elected over gasbag John McCain in 2008, he fulfilled his campaign promise of ending the war in Iraq, but without adopting Biden’s suggestion, choosing instead to continue supporting the Shiite-dominated government led by Nouri al-Maliki, thus fostering continuing resentment by the Sunnis and the Kurds against al-Maliki.
Now, with ISIS, a well-organized group of Sunni extremists, about to capture Baghdad and execute al-Maliki (just as Saddam Hussein was hanged, except that ISIS will torture al-Maliki in crucifixion style and with no American participation), it seems that Biden might have been right after all.
After pondering that 2006 op-ed, your solitary reporter was reminded of his boyhood days in boarding school, when, in the second year of Latin, he was required to memorize Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which begin "Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est", meaning "All Gaul is divided into three parts."
During a long, not so private phone conversation between Biden and the solitary reporter this afternoon, Biden said, “Yep, SR, it’s true: I plagiarized Caesar when I wrote that op-ed.”
“But so what? I got it right. Therefore, the Democratic Party should forget about Hillary and nominate me instead in 2016."
When Bill Clinton’s operatives informed him of Biden’s comments, Clinton slapped his thigh in good old boy Arkansas style, saying that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
Write a comment