The Smithian

Joe Biden…must be considering a presidential run. There will be too much Obama-era unfinished business—implementing the Affordable Care Act, fighting for climate-change initiatives, for example—for Biden to throw in the towel. His strengths as a candidate are his blue-collar persona, family values, lifetime support of labor unions and farmers, foreign-policy expertise and stouthearted belief that the Obama administration’s record of accomplishment…has been historic. With Air Force Two at his disposal and his two superbright sons, Hunter and Beau, probably working as his chief advisers, Biden can give Hillary Clinton a run for her money. Although she will have an unquestioned advantage among women, it’s not inconceivable to think that labor unions, environmentalists, African-Americans, LGBT voters and small-business owners will prefer the hypercaffeinated, hard-charging vice president. Like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a presumed Republican candidate, Biden has learned to turn the sound-bite culture on its head by speaking from the gut. Though he’s been a major political player since the Nixon years, Biden has pulled off the trick of not seeming like politics-as-usual. It could be a mistake to underestimate his populist appeal. And it’s hard to imagine that this highly ambitious man will choose not to pursue the office he’s wanted all his life.

more, plus the talk with Vice President Biden, here.

Republican reformers are reluctant to admit the obstacle that Bush’s legacy poses to public confidence on foreign affairs. Although they acknowledge that the wars have been unpopular and expensive, they present these facts…as if the deaths of nearly 7,000 Americans were the result of weather or other uncontrollable forces…Who do they think they’re fooling? Then there’s the economy…long-term problems of unemployment, wage stagnation, and rising health-care and education costs…they are reluctant to acknowledge that the Bush administration did little to reverse these trends, and in some ways exacerbated them…the Bush administration regarded tax cuts as a signature achievement. Ordinary citizens have long…memories.

more.

Sen. Robert Menendez is suddenly big news in Washington. The new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is at the center of a bipartisan group working to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws and the focus of a brewing political scandal. But neither success nor scandal is new to Menendez (D), so back home in New Jersey the reaction to his ups and downs is decidedly more muted…

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Over the past four years, Biden has insinuated himself into the White House, while seeming hardly to try, in a way that no other vice president in memory has done. He and Obama, both consummate pragmatists although they tend to be liberal in outlook, have achieved something close to a mind meld across a whole range of issues, including foreign policy, the economy, and political strategy. Biden said it outright in his speech during the presidential campaign: “I literally get to be the last guy in the room with the president. That’s our arrangement.” That’s no small thing in a town where power is often measured in minutes of presidential face time.

more.

There are a lot of channels—and a lot of cabinet posts—through which to run foreign policy. Obama, like many recent Presidents, has done it at least as much from the White House, through the National Security Council, and from the Defense Department as from the State Department. Obama has already said that Rice will stay on at the U.N.: “A key member of my cabinet and national-security team.” And whomever he names to Secretary of State, Obama will remain the maker, rather than the carrier, of a decisive foreign policy. What happened today, he said, was that Susan Rice showed “an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first.” He couldn’t have said more plainly that McCain had put self-interest first, but McCain went and said so for him anyway. His response to Rice’s decision today was “thank you.”

…despite Romney’s momentary embrace of President Obama’s policies, we should still be concerned with the role that neoconservatives would play in a Romney administration. It’s important to keep in mind that, as a candidate, Governor George W. Bush made a lot of moderate, reasonable-sounding noises about foreign policy too. But when faced with a crisis on 9/11, the inexperienced president with unformed foreign policy ideas fell back on the comforting but naive idea that America’s greatness could be proclaimed, and its deterrence re-established, through the massive exercise of military force. The next president will likely face a similar crisis, even if not likely on the scale of 9/11. It very much matters who has his ear.

more.