Combative contest between Biden, Ryan lift both sides' spirits - NBCNews.com [ournewsa.blogspot.com]
Aberdeen & North - Friday, January 28, 2011The Scottish Ambulance Service says it's attempting to change the policy which allowed one of it's technicians to refuse to attend a woman suffering a heart attack because he was on his break. Mandy Mathieson died at her home in Tomintoul after suffering a blood clot. There are renewed fears tonight over plans to axe a coastguard station in either Shetland or the Western Isles. In sport, Andy Murray is close to ending Britain's seventy five year wait for a men's Major winner.
>> good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington . the table is now reset for next week's matchup between the president and governor romney 's after last night's combative contest in danville between the running mates. the vice presidential candidates sparred for 90 minutes in a contentious debate that delighted their bases but what is the impact on independent and undecided voters . joining me david gregory moderator of "meet the press" and chris cizilla msnbc contributor and managing editor of post-politics.com. the big night in danville first to you, chris overnight quick reaction polls which we don't rely on because they're on-line polls.
>> right.
>> but your sense from your blog as to whether this was a win, place or draw?
>> you know, i think everything your analysis in this debate fends on what you think of joe biden and joe biden 's performance. paul ryan was there. he made some points. you know, i mean he did the things that i think republicans wanted him to do, not back down, look like he was credible, could be the vice president of the united states . biden was this huge figure for good or bad depending on your perspective. i think he would have won the debate andrea on points, narrowly, had he just controlled a little bit more his off camera reaction. the two of you spend more time on television than i do but we all spend some amount of time on television. the camera can be on you when you're not talking. joe biden has been in politics and he knows that. to quote spinal tap turned the amplifier up to 11 when like 8 would have probably done the laughing and the kind of open disdain for paul ryan and paul ryan would be talking and you could in the split screen he would mouth that's not true. the democratic base loved it. but i thought he was a little too hot.
>> stopped the hemorrhaging, fired the base. don't know what impact is on undecided voters . there were some serious policy points. he absolutely threw the state department and cia under the bus. contradicted the state department in what they had just testified to about benghazi, serious subject obviously, and sort of blamed the cia. let's take a look at this.
>> we weren't told they wanted more security again. we did not know they wanted more security again. by the way, at the time, we were told exactly -- we said exactly what the intelligence community told us, that they knew. that was the assessment. and as the intelligence community changed their view we made it clear they changed their view.
>> and jay carney today just to go a little farther, was asked about this conflict.
>> he was speaking directly for himself and for the president. he meant the white house . in over four hours of testimony the testimony that you just referenced, the other day, no one who testified about this matter suggested that requests for additional security were made to the president or the white house . these are issues appropriately that are handled by security professionals at the state department and that's what he was talking about.
>> david , there is a continuing controversy, hillary clinton asked about it today and said we knew what we knew at the time and investigating, she ducked the question.
>> paul ryan came out among the more memorable lines is there's an act of terror against the united states we're going to call it what it is. this administration is caught in a lot of different explanations, complicated story, and you've got the intelligence community , state department and the white house . we cover washington . we understand there's a lot of competing voices when it comes to that. the buck stops at the white house with the president on these matters. and this was an act of terror as he says and there are a lot of different explanations. heated testimony about the fact that there were additional security requests. again this is just messy. i don't think -- look, martha raddtz asked direct questions i believe in moderators asking direct questions and getting answers. was i t an intelligence failure . he didn't answer the question. and she did go back at a later point. this just -- they're just sewing more confusion about this rather than resolving the issue which is creating more of an ish.
>> >> what's fascinating is that mitt romney by almost everyone's account when they still did not know where chris stevens ' body was or whether he was alive -- it's forgotten because of the overarching problem with the administration pointing fingers in all directions. the testimony on capitol hill was that there was real-time video and real-time reporting back to washington as the assault was taking place. at that moment they knew there was no protest, there was an invasion.
>> right.
>> and at the same time the initial intelligence say assessment that went to susan rice and sat down with you on "meet the press," what everybody is referring to, that intelligence assessment is what people say and hillary clinton again today said rice was operating off of.
>> right. i mean this is the problem. so you know, where did this line of communication get so bad? why did it take so long? let's also remember jay carney said it was self-evident it was terrorism but he said that, you know, more than a week later. i just think this is confusing. as a policy matter a lot of sort of accountability for this. still the question of where does it go. you know, what are we doing right now to investigate and track down the killers? and what does it mean more broadly for american policy in the region? i think the next layer of this is an area of complication for republicans and for this ticket which is beyond being rhetorically tougher than this administration , what is it that romney / ryan would do differently on some of these difficult matters?
>> i wanted to show mitt romney in richmond today on this whole same subject.
>> the vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of state department officials. he's doubling down on denial.
>> to this day, to this day, we do not have a complete picture. we do not have all the answers. no one in this administration has ever claimed otherwise.
>> and that wasn't the only foreign policy issue. another was iran . also afghanistan. interesting partly because of martha raddtz's experience and expertise and talk about winners and losers, the winner of that debate was martha raddtz my friend and colleague at abc but also on iran you have two completely different postures.
>> 100%. actually, for -- having said that, that paul ryan was kind of along for the ride i will say for a debate that was, it was supposed to be domestic and foreign policy it was both of those things but a lot of foreign policy . for a guy who has no real track record on foreign policy , been a member of congress they deal with these sorts of things but not certainly as deeply as joe biden had either in the senate or as vice president, he was i think fine on foreign policy . david 's point, look the foreign policy big foreign policy story we're talking about today is what the vice president of the united states said and now what the white house is saying to explain what he said. so, you know, paul ryan did not get himself spun around the axle in som e way on foreign policy which is clearly not his natural area of expertise.
>> mike allen 's line is memorable he spoke foreign policy as a second language. he was channeling his advisers dan senor but didn't get in any trouble but a big distinction. the romney camp saying this administration has gone soft, sent certain signals to iran and has not been close enough to b.b. netanyahu and israel and the vice president saying very forcefully we have the toughest sanctions and we, not the bush administration , have the diplomatic credibility to get russia and china engaged and to finally get the world to back us on sanctions.
>> i interviewed governor romney several weeks ago and he said we ought to continue the crippling sanctions in place, should have been in place sooner. critical of the administration coming into office saying that we ought to try to engage iran diplomatically, should have backed the green revolution there, so obviously there's a difference of an approach to iran . a more hardline approach that you get from governor romney . to what end is not clear. set a different red line than this administration . we don't know the answer to that. look, president bush , president obama , and a president romney would all say we will not allow iran to acquire the nuclear know how basically to produce weapons. biden was saying clearly, look, it's not as b ad as it seems, they don't have a weapon to mount this on.
>> one point ryan seemed to agree with that saying we have more time.
>> it's not clear to me where the real difference is in the policy.
>> yep.
>> rhetoric is fine. one of the challenge for republicans right now post the bush era if you're saying that basically the democrats are soft on foreign policy , what is the difference between that and the projection of american power under the bush era where you invaded other countries and the like? is there some middle ground . if there is i don't know what that is. we're in the rhetorical stage after neo conservative sounding ticket --
>> and biden made --
>> being tougher is not a policy.
>> biden made a virtue out of that for his base saying would you go to a war? would you start another war? and that is very resonate with democratic base and independents.
>> saw joe biden doing everything he could on foreign policy speaking from a position of power. i've met netanyahu 39 times, you don't understand on afghanistan. look you may have the note cards in front of you, that tell you what to say on these things, i've lived this.
>> one question david , how does this tee up the president's performance next week? does he have to be sort of goldilocks, much more agrees severe than last time clearly, but not amped up as much as joe biden .
>> he never would be. only joe biden can pull off a joe biden performance like that. and even if it was over the top . that's just not president obama 's style. but i think he's going to be more aggressive about challenging what romney is saying. again, i think biden did it to a point where every other word of ryan 's he was inter -- trying to intercept. i think that the main thing is, the big lament from the obama team is they felt they let romney back in. i think the president comes in, more aggressive, energetic, more fight. that's what we expect to see. this idea that you don't know who these guys are, they keep changing their positions, there's no truth there, that's the big argument.
>> thanks so much, chris cizilla. we'll see you on "meet the press."
>> thank you.
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