Joe Biden: Super Servant of the Super Rich? Or the Working Man?

It wasn't all that long ago that I was gushing like a school girl at a Justin Bieber concert over Joe Biden, as if he were somehow above the political fray, when, in fact, he could be the poster boy for the ongoing tug-of-war inside the Beltway.  I truly believed he was a true friend of the working man,  making excuses for his despicable support of the bankruptcy bill, and waxing on about his integrity.

Well, those days are over. I  finally opened my eyes when I put the lovable gaffe-prone persona aside and looked at the most corporate friendly state in the U.S.: Joe Biden's state: Delaware. Not to mention his position in the Continuity of Government (COG) (set up after WWII to ensure continuity of government in case of a nuclear attack. Over the years, each presidential administration has expanded the powers of the Continuity of Government, whose members are permanent and not elected. On 9/11, the COG was officially initiated. Members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Porter Goss, Joe Biden. The COG is classified Top Secret and neither the public nor Congress is allowed to review it. It is, in effect, a completely secret government that operates at the highest levels of national security, intelligence, military, and industry, with full authority to do whatever it wants without accountability) and last but certainly not least, learning that he drafted the core provisions of the Patriot Act in 1995.

CNET reported:

It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.* The Center for National Security Studiessaid the bill would erode “constitutional and statutory due process protections” and would “authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and assocblank Joe Biden Drafted the Core of the Patriot Act in 1995 ... Before the Oklahoma City Bombingiations.”

Russ Baker believes his gaffes are secretly brilliant. I'm inclined to agree.

All this makes me wonder if something else is not going on. It makes me wonder if these remarks were intended to have the exact effect they did.

Let me explain.

There is no question that Joseph Biden has a long history of putting his foot in his mouth. But the mere expectation that everything he says is accidental or ill-conceived also puts him in a good position to put out material that actually helps Obama. And it is not as if Biden is completely incapable of memorizing his lines—or at least reading them off a teleprompter.

Maybe these most recent remarks were mistakes. But mistakes tend to come in debates, in response to questions, not in prepared speeches. And these seem to have been prepared remarks, a carefully calculated effort, as with all good speeches, to create some theatre—and to include at least one “hot” phrase that will get picked up by the electronic media. There is simply no point to having Biden speak to a live audience without considering how to multiply the ultimate audience by a factor of thousands. And no point to having him speak at all unless he has some zinger that will appeal to news producers and headline writers.

So, is Joe Biden merely an "average Joe", a champion of the common man?  Or, an executor of plutocrat policy, who although his allegiance to capitalist imperialism, and neo-liberalism? Who can carry out his mission without provoking the wrath of the progressives, the liberals?

If nothing else, gotta wonder how he's lasted so long inside the beltway.