Joe Biden: Everything is GOP's fault

Via Jason Zengerle at The Plank, Joe Biden is blaming Republicans for, well, just about everything:

I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what's gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn't happen accidentally, all these things.

You can argue that the response of Bush or the GOP to Hugo Chavez, Katrina, or Darfur has been inadequate, but how is the "Gingrich revolution" responsible for Virginia Tech or Imus? More fundamentally, note that Biden says "This didn't happen accidentally, all these things" (my italics) -- he's holding Republicans responsible for the occurrence of hurricanes, foreign dictators, and racial slurs on the radio (among other things).

Maybe Biden has been reading Larry Bartels, a distinguished political scientist at Princeton, who believes that voters hold politicians responsible for so-called "acts of God" like bad weather and shark attacks. Here's part of a 2004 segment from PBS's "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" that quotes Bartels:

PAUL SOLMAN: [T]here's a third way to look at the election: That voters are largely irrational. Political scientist Larry Bartels' research suggests voters may confuse acts of God, like droughts and floods, with acts of the president.

LARRY BARTELS: We looked at data from the weather service over the whole 20th century, and there's a pretty strong pattern of incumbents doing less well in particular election years in particular states where things have been either too wet or too dry.

PAUL SOLMAN: Too wet or too dry?

LARRY BARTELS: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, Bartels thinks the extreme inclemency of the year 2000 cost the Democrats the White House, much as President Woodrow Wilson's reelection was threatened by the famous New Jersey shore shark attacks of 1916. The government had moved quickly to counterattack and keep people out of the water back then, but...

LARRY BARTELS: People along the shore were unhappy about the fact that Wilson wasn't doing anything to control the shark attacks and were more likely to vote against him as a result.

In short, there may be a method to Biden's madness. Sadly.

Comments

[Rob]

I reckon you're giving Biden too much credit for thinking before he spoke. Watching him question witnesses at Senate hearings is at once both horrifying and compelling. He meanders, he rambles, he doubles back on himself, he attempts to ingratiate himself with the witness, until finally, mercifully, his time expires. Why should we assume that Candidate Biden is any better able to edit himself or any less prone to verbal diarrhea?

[SomeCallMeTim]

but how is the "Gingrich revolution" responsible for Virginia Tech or Imus?

But for the 1994 revolution, the North would have come to terms with the split in this country and crushed the South. We weren't going to leave you any schools either (except UNC, out of respect for Dean Smith), so no VT. Which means no VT shooting.

Imus was to be the first one put through the reeducation program; at the end, Don would have become Donna, and Donna would have been more careful with her gender words.