Joe Biden | McClelland Miscellanea

Category Archives: Joe Biden

May 31, 2009 · 7:58 pm

Does a Smart Car Make You Smarter?

The official car of the Democrat Party?

Is it true that the Smart car is the official car of the Democrat Party in this area and the Invisible car is the official car of the Republican Party?

A Smart car with an Obama/Biden bumper sticker would surely indicate the most gifted among us. These extra smart folks are still in the love-is-blind stage with Barack Obama. If you offer them anything negative, they call out the previous president. How can they go wrong with such a smart strategy?

I’d like to see Obama gift wrap a couple of those Smart cars and send them to the leaders of Iran and North Korea. Those two need to smarten up. Only dummies would threaten their neighborhoods with missiles and rockets the way they do.

Some supporters of Obama probably believe that a drive or two in a Smart car, while listening to one of Obama’s “follow-me-wherever-it-is-I’m-going” speeches, would cause those temporarily bad leaders to realize how “unsmartly” they have been acting and lead them to change for the better.

Dare I suggest that the President’s words may not change the threatening behavior of Iran and North Korea? Does he have a Plan B in him? I’m not sure. So far we’ve heard words and watched our money past/present/future used as solutions. Even a person who doesn’t have a Smart car realizes that both of those approaches have serious limitations.

Every President inherits problems from the previous administration. Part of the reason they are elected is because they convince us that they can make things better.

I beg the Obama apologists in our midst to detail how he has made this country, or this world, a better place because of what he’s done so far. Maybe one of the 100-days, sign-holding, Obama lovers could enlighten me.

Obviously owning a Smart car doesn’t make you smart and maybe, just maybe, sporting an Obama/Biden bumper sticker will carry the same stigma in the months ahead.

( Sent out as a letter-to-the-editor on May 29, 2009. Appeared in the Newburyport Daily News on June 4, 2009. )

Retirees: Sarah Palin is Our Daughter

Okay, not really but after watching her going against Joe Biden in the vice presidential debates I could not help but think that she could be our daughter.

Her age (43) is right and I cannot help but imagine that Sarah and our own daughter are similar. If you have a daughter near that age, you know what I am talking about.

We raised them. We trained them. We hurt when they hurt and were happy when they were happy. We could not stop ourselves from bragging about them to anyone who would listen.

But suddenly they grew up and high school, dating, college, marriage, and children lessened our connection to them. We hoped and prayed that we had helped set in place a foundation that would help them as they built a life with less and less influence from us.

Now we look at them and see what they have become and think, “Wow!” Little seems to get the best of them and if it does, they know how to find solutions. They juggle a schedule that includes; a husband, kids, employment, and pets and still have enough left to be pleasant to be around.

Joe Biden (65) is the age of us retirees. In addition, like us, he can still talk a good game. However, let us be realistic, he has neither the energy of our daughters nor the practical problem-solving skills our daughters have developed.

Joe, and the rest of us of retiree age, can get an occasional burst of energy and we can solve an occasional problem or two if we can remember what the problem was by the time we solve it. It is folly for anyone of retiree age to think that he has more to offer than the likes of Sarah Palin.

Some folks thought that John McCain took a big risk when he added Sarah to his leadership team. I believe that most of us retirees, with daughters Sarah’s age, must respectfully disagree.

(Appeared in both The Bridgton News and Newburyport Daily News on October 9th.)