Posted by
RME KRNL on Thursday, September 04, 2008 1:56:21 PM
I was surprised, but pleased, at Senator Obama's pick of Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. Surprised, because all this time Obama's been saying that sound judgment (although he's not shown a lot of that, either, in many cases), not experience, was what was important, and now he has clearly picked someone who will not bring him that many votes but who will bolster his lack of foreign policy and military expertise. Isn't that an admission that what you were arguing before wasn't really true? Oh, but I had a "senior moment" and temporarily forgot I was talking about Obama, someone who has done so many flip-flops by now that he could successfully compete with however many flip-flops have been worn on any given beach, on any given day, all of this campaign summer.
I was pleased because Biden comes with his own "baggage." A scrapper, yes, but also one who sometimes overshoots the mark, says too much, and often puts his foot in his mouth (and Obama's already doing enough of that himself). Someone who can be quoted, along with Hillary, as having flatly said that Obama is not ready to be president and that John McCain is. Someone who is a "good" Catholic but is also pro-choice, so it's unknown how "good" a Catholic other Catholics will view him as. Someone who is already the third most liberal Senator, added to Obama who is the most liberal of all. Can we say, "Where's the balance?" Or should we say, "Where's ANY balance?" Someone who is touted as the "scrappy kid from Scranton" but who actually moved from there when he was 10, who is now 65 and who has been an integral part of Washington for about 35 years (14 years longer than John McCain's been a senator!), whether Biden goes home to his Delaware house every night or not. Can we ask, "Change business as usual in Washington? Hmmm, really?"
And, by the way, so far as Biden's much touted foreign policy experience really adding to the Democratic ticket? That's all fine, unless and until people really stop and think and then realize that as a senator, even as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden holds hearings, conducts fact-finding missions and makes foreign policy recommendations -- but he doesn't make foreign policy decisions and he surely doesn't make our foreign policy. The President has the burden and responsibility of doing that. Besides, although I will at least give him credit for being one of the few Democrats who was even looking for a workable solution in Iraq (while Harry Reid and others were just running around saying Bush lied us into war and saying the war was lost), Biden's solution was wrong -- and John McCain's was right. Remember when Biden was talking up how we should divide Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurd areas? Who did he think he was, Julius Caesar? Omni Galli es divisi en tres partes? (For those of you a little less Latin literate: All Gaul is divided into three parts.) Well, in addition to Biden being wrong on that, versus the surge McCain was pushing for, just so we could then pull out and leave in defeat (which it seems is what ALL Democrats wanted -- we voted for this, but it's become too hard, so let's just quit), he was also wrong for two other reasons. First, by the time of his proposing that solution, Iraq was already a sovereign country which had held democratic elections and elected its own government which did not want to do that. So, how could we say on one hand that Iraq was a sovereign nation and on the other hand make them do something they didn't want to do? Second, that would have just ensured that the Shiite partition in southern Iraq would have become a haven for the already-interferring (Shiite) Iranians to move into and use a base to more easily do all sorts of mischief there and throughout the rest of Iraq. So, duh, Joe Biden, Mr. Foreign Policy Expert, put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Otherwise, I think Biden was a "safe" choice, but I also think that Team Obama is really worried, along with Democrats in general, about why Obama hasn't been able to pull away in the polls, to close the deal, and whereas up to now it's been said that the election is all about Obama and his to lose, rather than McCain's to win, I think they are more worried than they would ever admit that that is exactly what is happening -- Obama is not only not pulling away but is actually losing ground.
I voted for JFK and Jimmy Carter, so I've been voting for quite a while now, but Obama is, without question, the least experienced and I think the least qualified candidate for president we've seen in a long time. And, in a time of Islamic terrorism, a slowed economy, high gasoline prices and a housing debacle at home, a near-nuclear Iran, an unsettled Middle East, and our ever uneasy "ally" Russia once again not only ascendant but also assailing its neighbors, just to name a few things, I don't have the time, the trust or the patience for Obama to do OJT (on-the-job-training), no matter how, as Biden himself once said, "smart, or clean, or articulate" he is.
So, I welcome the more-senior-than-McCain and gaffe-prone Senator Joe Biden, who couldn't get much traction in his own bids for the White House in 1988 or 2008, in helping Obama to sink his so sought after ship of state, thus sending both senators back to the Senate where they belong -- where Biden has already given years of service to our country and where Obama might finally do some of the work for which he was elected a U.S. Senator, thus gaining some experience and perhaps exchanging his hubris for a little humility.