Keller @ Large: How Reliable Are These Allies?
BOSTON (CBS) - The writer Michael Kinsley once pointed out that "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth," and that is certainly true of Vice President Joe Biden's gaffe-laden remarks at Harvard the other day.
Biden spent the weekend apologizing to two of our allies in the war on ISIS, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, for saying that right now "our biggest problem is our allies" – Turkey, the UAE and the Saudis – who helped create ISIS by pouring "hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad - except that the people who were being supplied were… extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."
For good measure, Biden claimed that Turkish President Erdogan had admitted blundering by helping create ISIS.
Needless to say, Erdogan and UAE bigwigs are orbiting the earth over this, and the White House p-r specialists now say Biden has "apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of [ISIS] or other violent extremists in Syria."
I can see why this is diplomatically awkward, and that distant moaning sound you heard Sunday night coming from Beacon Hill was almost surely from John Kerry's house.
But I say Biden has done a service by underscoring a key fact about our latest war effort – it relies on the goodwill and honest effort of some of the sketchiest allies ever, governments with track records of dubious judgment and a distant relationship with truth.
ISIS is a nasty threat, but as we did with al Qaeda, we can crush it with our superior force and cooperation from allies.
But as the vice president has helpfully underscored, there's some real suspense around how useful those allies are really going to be.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
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