Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who recently penned his first book, “Promises to Keep,” will be the first to admit that he’s no William F
aulkner. “My publishers tell me this is a memoir and that it’s on the New York Times Bestseller List, which baffles me even more than the fact that George W. Bush is our president,” Delaware Sen. Biden told a standing-room only crowd during a book reading at the internationally renown Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City. “It must be a slow week in the literary world,” he said.
Biden was quick to acknowledge the literary aura of Prairie Lights, which for many years has fed off the literary prowess of the famed Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. T
apping into his penchant for storytelling, Biden immediately connected to the audience by telling a story about an argument he had with his first wife, Neilia, who was a Faulkner scholar before her fatal automobile accident in 1972. The Bidens were arguing about future plans for their oldest son, Beau. Neilia was determined that Beau would be the next William Faulkner, while Joe argued otherwise. “I hoped that none of our sons would become authors, because they all seem to have such tortured and unhappy lives.”
Faulkner resurfaced in Biden’s life a few weeks ago in an Oxford, Miss., bookstore, where he was scheduled to speak, not as a U.S. senator, but as a best-selling author. Upon entering the bookstore, Square Books, Biden walked by a bronze statue of Faulkner, when the thought hit him, “I wonder what my dear Neilia is thinking about me today?”
Biden used this story to segue into the reading component of the evening and prefaced his reading with a few words about “Promises to Keep.” “I’ve been struggling with how to talk about a book that I’ve written that’s both about the past and a little bit about the future, so I decided I would just let the words speak for themselves,” Biden said. “For, in truth, they are who I am and what I believe. I think we undervalue the capacity of the American people to handle the truth, and this is precisely why I’m running for president. The truth often gets me into trouble. Regardless of the political fallout, I’m not afraid to speak the truth. At the very least, we owe this to the American people.”Biden embarked on a traditional literary reading and read for about 15 minutes before opening questions to the audience packed into the second floor of the bookstore. Typically, this Q & A period is chock-full of questions about the author’s creative process, craft and inspirations for writing the book. Bypassing these unwritten traditions, the crowd wasted no time questioning Biden on matters of foreign affairs, the current administration’s mishandling of Katrina and the neglect of America’s combat veterans.
In lieu of narrating Biden’s Q & A session play by play, maybe it would be best to lift a piece of advice from Biden’s own playbook and let the words speak for themselves. The following is an abridgement of Biden’s responses as he used his well-honed oratory skills to work the Prairie Lights crowd.
First Question: During a speech just before leaving office, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked by a woman who yelled from the rafters “What advice would you give to future leaders taking your spot?” Rumsfeld replied, “Read history.”
Biden: “Read history” is the ultimate oxymoron in this case. I’ve often wondered why Rumsfeld and Cheney, who are intellectuals, would, in the good Lord’s name, embark on such a policy as they did regarding the war in Iraq. What would make them think we would be greeted with open arms by the Iraqi people?
I cannot prove this, but I think they thought that we are at the apex of our physical power. I think they believed with enough shock and awe and moving rapidly militarily, they could install a new authoritative military base and dictator in Iraq. I’m convinced these guys never bought into the neoconservative notion that we could instill democracy. Those guys [the neoconservatives] are idealists. Consequently, I’ve come up with a construct when describing Rumsfeld and Cheney: “neoconservative realists.” They had a very sound Machiavellian notion that was not doable. If we went in and rapidly established a government and sound military base, we could box in Iran, because we could no longer count on that in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. We wouldn’t own the oil bases, but we would have a pressure point to counter balance OPEC’s excesses where it occurred. That’s the only explanation I can come forward with. Keep in mind that I cannot prove this; it’s merely conjecture on my part.
In fact, I’ll make you a bet that Rumsfeld and/or Cheney will one day write their own books and they will say, “It could’ve worked, had it not been for the president’s naivet
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter