Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows



By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Barack Obama picks a loose-lipped running mate who voted for the Iraq War and questioned his readiness. Obama says he wants a veep who'll challenge him. Instead, he got one who'll need to tutor him.

It will be quite possibly the most verbose ticket in political history now that Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., has accepted a vice presidential nomination he earlier said he wouldn't accept from Barack Obama, who Biden once described as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Obama, the outsider candidate of change and hope has picked one of the few people who has been in Washington longer than John McCain. This is hardly the "change" Obama promised.

Biden, 65, was first elected to represent Delaware in 1972. Obama was 11. John McCain was dwelling in one of his many homes, the Hanoi Hilton.

Biden was picked to provide Obama foreign policy expertise and Biden, for one, thinks Obama needs it. He's said so.

Of Obama's pledge to invade Pakistan if necessary to fight terror, Biden said, "It's a very naive way of thinking how you're going to conduct foreign policy." He added: "Having talking points on foreign policy doesn't get you there."

Biden is not a man of few words and occasionally feels the need to borrow some. In 1987, Biden was a credible presidential candidate until the moment he lifted passages from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.

But even when the words are his own, they can display the racial insensitivity of Obama's white grandmother.

In 2006, on the C-Span series "Road To The White House," Biden famously remarked: "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

Yes, Obama has a "post-racial" running mate.

Biden's words have criticized Obama so much that one would think he was seeking John McCain's No. 2 slot. Indeed, on "The Daily Show" in 2005, Biden said: "I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who . . ."

Of Obama's qualifications, Biden said last year, "I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."

While preparing his own run, Biden said of Obama: "If the Democrats think we're going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we're making a tragic mistake."

Biden's criticisms of Obama have been most heated on the war in Iraq. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was particularly critical of Obama's May 20, 2007, vote to defund the war.

"I am not going to fail to protect these kids as long as we have a single, solitary troop in Iraq," Biden said during a September 8, 2007, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press." "This isn't cutting off the war. This is cutting off support that will save the lives of American troops."

Obama has spoken proudly of always being against the war. Speaking to the Brookings Institution in 2005, Biden said: "We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a tragic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake."

Barack Obama is not ready for prime time and electing him president may be the biggest mistake of all. But that's not us speaking — it's Obama's running mate, Joe Biden.



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