Biden vs. Cheney

Ding. Ding. Ding.

The battle of the White Houses has officially begun. And Operation: Democracy can't be any more excited.

Finally, after months of former Vice President Cheney disrespecting the current administration from the sidelines, the present Vice President, Joe "Give Them Hell" Biden, gave him Hell. As Harry Truman would say, "I'm going to tell them the truth and they'll think it's Hell!"

Speaking in front of the Center for Security Policy a few days ago, Cheney called on the current administration, Obama in particular, to stop "dithering" on Afghanistan. In his opinion, the President was taking too much time in deciding the next step for Afghanistan. Cheney's belief is that we should not think through our options, that we should not wait for the contested election in the country to be decided, that we should simply elevate the forces and funds and forget about their domestic issues. He thinks thoughtful carefulness "emboldens our adversaries." Please.

Yesterday, speaking in Eastern Europe, Vice President Biden, the Sheriff as they call him in the White House, was about to say "Who cares what Cheney has to say?" He almost said it, when he stopped himself at "Who cares..." and went into the issue, saying that he believed Cheney and the past administration's Afghanistan review to be irrelevant. The Sheriff is, of course, entirely correct. Last year's Afghanistan is not this year's Afghanistan, much like next year's Afghanistan will be completely different from the present.

Let us put Cheney's comments into some type of understanding. The guy's time in power was plagued with jumping the gun on issues and wars, and a complete lack of thoroughness. They acted too quickly on Afghanistan and Iraq and too late on Katrina. Obviously his perception of timing is off.