So long as I'm pumping up the Biden bubble, this interview he gave to Walter Shapiro on the inadequacy of the Democratic foreign policy visions has some interesting stuff in it. As always with Biden, there's a fair bit of ego, but the upside of that ego is a total self-confidence when talking national security and international relations, which is an all-too-rare thing on the Democratic side. We really don't have many national politicians who speak easily and confidently on foreign policy -- which isn't to say they don't know foreign policy. But there's a sort of embarrassment, an insecurity that what they want to say and what they really think will be rejected by the electorate, and that undercurrent of fear is pretty well sensed by voters. And because of that, Democrats spend a lot of time hedging their language, or making commitments that they think show resolve. From the interview:
What concerns me about the Democrats is the idea that the Democrats always must look tough. If they are perceived as the party of weakness, they fear they will lose. But if you're so busy looking tough, don't you also have to act tough?
Exactly right. Exactly positively right. What do you do as president of the United States when you say -- to use similar language to Rudy Giuliani -- in my term I guarantee you that Iranians will not get a nuclear weapon? You have just said that you are going to war with Iran if you cannot come up with a diplomatic alternative to this. Period. That's it.
I have an expression that I have used in my career that is very much in vogue these days: "Big nations can't bluff." I find myself wondering -- all kidding aside -- that the single biggest advantage that I have in being the Democratic nominee is that none of you guys [in the press] will wonder whether I'm tough enough. I don't have to threaten. I don't think anybody who has worked with me in 35 years, who has covered me, for all the foibles I have, wonders whether I'm going to have to prove in a general election that I'm a tough guy by taking some stupid position about war. I think what people make judgments about is what kind of president they think you're going to be based on your track record and their perception of your character and how you deal with tough things.
I admit that under our sexist society it is probably more difficult for a woman to be able to communicate that [toughness]. I think that Hillary communicates resolve and toughness alone. I wish she didn't think that she had to sign on to some of this other stuff.
Given that I'm basically a proponent of the "it's not what you say, but how you say it" school of campaigning, I'd like all our candidates to get about 20% more arrogant on these subjects.
