Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Strong Democratic Knowledge of History

From March 20, 2012 CBS News:

Vice President Joe Biden on Monday lauded President Obama for his leadership in the mission to take out Osama bin Laden last May, telling donors at a New Jersey fundraiser that you could not find a "more audacious plan" if you went back in history 500 years.
"You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that [bin Laden] was there," said Biden, in Morris Township, New Jersey, according to a White House pool report.
Some statements are so astonishingly stupid that they require no comment.  At least you would not have to go back 500 years to find a more astonishingly stupid remark.

4 comments:

  1. So, is Professor Biden talking about the plan to kill OSB or about the decision by BHB to go ahead and complete the plan? If the first, I think the rescue of Mussolini by Otto Skorzeny and his troops exceeds the plan if only because of primitive technology and the geography of the Alpine landing zone. If the second, then I think Eisenhower's decision to go ahead with Operation Overlord on the strength of incomplete and relatively primitive weather reporting is an order of magnitude greater because of the number of men it placed at risk.

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  2. Um, Trafalgar? Midway? Point du Hauc?

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  3. Raid on Entebbe? Somali Pirate sniper shot? Operation Wrath of God? Iranian Nuclear scientist assassination with a explosively formed perpetrator "sticky bomb"?

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  4. I always though having little forgien policy experience was better than 35 years of being wrong about everything.

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