Joe Biden’s foreign policy expertise shines again

José Guardia at the Barcepundit blog has a mini-translation of a story from a Spanish news outlet regarding the meeting VP Biden and Spain’s prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had yesterday in Chile. Among other things, what did Biden “thank” Zapatero for? His efforts … in Iraq:

As everybody knows, the first decision Zapatero made after his unexpected win in 2004, right after the Madrid train terrorist attacks, was to abruptly and unilaterally pull out from Iraq. So either Biden made a gaffe, or he was thanking Zapatero for angering Bush…

I agree with Ed Morrissey here:

No, I think Biden would have been blunt enough to just say, “Thanks for ticking off George Bush.” It should be noted that the Spanish Finger to the US didn’t just include pulling out of Iraq, but also refusing to train Iraqi security forces.

And that’s not all, Guardia adds:

When I wrote the post I didn’t remember to add this, which makes things even worse: shortly after ordering the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq, Zapatero called the other countries to follow the example. Some help, Biden.

What’s one of the featured stories at the NYT this weekend? A puff piece on Biden with the headline, “Speaking Freely, Biden Finds Influential Role” – it was published yesterday. President Obama was quoted as saying this about Biden:

Mr. Biden has settled into a role of what Mr. Obama compares to a basketball player “who does a bunch of things that don’t show up in the stat sheet,” the president said in an interview Friday. “He gets that extra rebound, takes the charge, makes that extra pass.”

And let’s not forget those frequent fouls …

This concludes another espisode of “Washington, DC’s Best and Brightest – 2009 Edition.”

(Via ST reader Anthony)