Careful what you say about Biden and Powell

The Complete Las Vegan feels the need to issue smelling salts this week to his political friends, both left and right.

First, VP "Say it Ain't So" Joe Biden stepped into another one of his famous (and don't say I didn't warn you!) gaffs at a fund-raiser in Seattle. He said Barack Obama will be tested by the world with a crisis within his first six months, just like John Kennedy was tested. My liberal friends should stop trying to explain Biden's comments away by saying it was just a "generalized" statement applying to any new president. Aside from making them sound like a Monty Python skit similar to the "Blessed are the Cheesemakers" in the "Life of Brian", that kind of defense is just not accurate and, well, dumb. Biden said what he meant. He specifically referred to Obama. And, more to the point, he articulated the fears many have (both liberal and conservative) about Obama's inexperience and what they think is his instinct to appease foreign leaders to establish himself as an internationalist.

Let's hope Biden is wrong on this one. I, for one, do not relish the thought of a nuke showdown on U.S. soil, ala Kennedy's Cuba missile crisis. And I, for one, have little confidence in Obama's backbone. If he can't even stand up to to the racist rantings of his own pastor ...

Second, my conservative friends need to graciously come to grips with the endorsement of Obama by Gen. Colin Powell and move on. No matter how you slice it, this was a big, big endorsement for Obama. Powell is a rock of an American leader; a military icon; and perhaps this country's best current thinker on foreign relations. Don't try to lessen the impact by somehow diminishing Powell. And for goodness sake, don't suggest it's a racial thing. It's not credible and it's not becoming.