Reply #12: Transcript is up - it's long - but Biden defended Moveon throughout the whole

[jillan]

conversation even tho he did not agree with their message.

WALLACE: Senator, let's turn to the MoveOn.org ad that we've been talking about, about General Petraeus. When you were asked about it last week, you said, "I don't buy into that. This is an honorable guy."

But I want to ask you directly. Was MoveOn.org wrong to attack the integrity of General Petraeus?

BIDEN: MoveOn.org is as frustrated and angry and can't — with this policy. What you saw is a burst of frustration. It was more about MoveOn.org than about the war.

And look. The idea that they have said — they use one phrase, that somehow these guys are a bunch of un-Americans who should be run out of the country or something — this is great political tactic for people to use. They were wrong in saying what they said, in my view.

But speaking of moving on, we should move on and decide what we're going to do about whether or not this continued failed policy that's chewing up American lives, chewing up American dollars, with no end in sight, is worth some disdain on the part of a lot of Americans who are really angry.

That's what you saw. You saw frustration there. And so, you know, this is what it is. I think it was a mistake. But I don't think it's a capital offense.

WALLACE: Fine. And you have just said that you thought that it was a mistake and you thought it was wrong.

And I'm not asking to you speak for them, but people are noting the fact that Senators Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator Edwards have all refused to say those simple words that you just said.

And it raises the question whether there are some people in your party that are pandering — that are scared of the antiwar left.

BIDEN: Look, I'm confident all the rest of those colleagues, all those others that are running as well, feel the same, and I think probably the majority of MoveOn.org probably regrets the way it came out.

But I think what you saw here is something that is — it's over. It's done. They went, in that one instance, I think, overboard. But the point they were trying to make was still valid.

The point they were trying to make is that the American public hasn't been told the truth about this war from the beginning, and they don't think they're being told the truth about it now.

And this president — you know, the earth moved when the president spoke the other day. He made clear what I said, I think, on your program 10 month ago: There is no plan to end this war by the time he's president. This is all about handing it off to the next president.

As one of your colleagues in the media said, he's using the American troops as a cork in a bottle which is to keep the very bad things from happening, spilling out into the region.

But there's no plan. There's no plan here to end the war. What's the plan? We're going to stand up the Iraqi forces? Here we are, 4.5 years later, $20 billion later. They still can't stand up.

And if you read the whole report that was put out by General Jones, it's going to be another four years before they're fully capable.

The American public are not prepared to keep American forces there just to keep bad things from happening.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296957,00.html