NYT: Biden as VP choice Posted by Shawn Brimley

According to the New York Times, Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph Biden to be his partner on the road to the White House:

Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running-mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, people told of the decision said.

Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Mr. Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.

...Chief among Mr. Biden’s strengths is his familiarity with foreign policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.

From a foreign policy angle alone, this is very good news. Senator Biden has long been a leader that understands the centrality of foreign policy issues and has shown clear leadership as Chairman of the SFRC. His series of comprehensive hearings on Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other key issues provided context to complex issues, and accountability to a White House that prefered to keep America in the dark on central issues of statecraft. So congratulations to Senator Biden and let's begin the push to November and the White House.

ps - and if it turns out the NYT is wrong in its reporting... well, I'll grow a beard.

Comments

[Yurfulla]

BREAKING NEWS ON John McCain's VP pick.

I was chatting with J-Mac a few minutes ago, and he told me that he's down to three finalists:

1. Margaret Thatcher. Why? She has a LOT of experience, and he looks young compared to her.

2. Paris Hilton. Why? With Paris as VP, nobody will ever look at or listen to the opposition. They'll be looking at her.

3. Michael Jackson. Win back the black vote. Keep the white vote. Maybe add some of the woman vote. And if we can't get people back on the moon, at least we can do the moonwalk.

Just thought you'd like to know,
Yuri

P.S. J-Mac is thinking he might have all THREE as VP. Corporations have more than one VP, why not the US of A?

[David Tomlin]

I think Biden is a very bad choice, because of his association with the Biden-Gelb 'soft partition' proposal for Iraq.

Some version of Biden-Gelb may be the best chance for something like stability in Iraq. But it isn't for the U.S. to be dictating such an outcome, and it's especially bad for the U.S. to be seen doing so openly. This is naked imperialism. Biden as VP negates much of the value of Obama's perceived 'fresh start'.

[Dan Kervick]

...Chief among Mr. Biden’s strengths is his familiarity with foreign policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.

This is a typical sort of substance-free, mainstream media paragraph showing how easily dazzled people can be by the most superficial tokens of foreign policy "experience" and "strength". Biden visited Georgia! He must know what he is doing!

Saakashvili, in need of propaganda assistance, turned to an easy mark in the US foreign policy establishment - a man with a loud mouth and a large ego, who has never declined a chance to grab the spotlight, sound off, and look important. Biden promptly went to Georgia, and helped Saakashvili by insulting the residents of Tskhinvali, letting them know that in his deeply uninformed, but nevertheless unreserved opinion, the suffering and destruction they had seen imposed on them by the Georgian government never actually occurred, and they must all be exaggerating. Of course, he never visited South Ossetia during his trip, and was just talking out of his ass.

Biden has chaired Foreign Relations; he talks a lot about foreign policy; he knows the names of places and the names of people; he always has some sort of "plan"; he especially likes to talk about himself and suggest he was the first to see some sort of problem, or the first to get something right. But in fact, his track record shows no better record of getting things right than any of the other Beltway Boobs who bungle from one mess to another.

Biden graduated 75th in his class of 85 at Syracuse law school. McCain graduated fifth from the bottom of his Naval Academy class. What is it about the American love affair with swaggering dumbasses?

[Peace]

No offense but Biden appears to be another version of Lieberman when it comes to foreign policy. In his remarks about the Georgia crisis he basically repeated the same lines as McCain, Bush, and Lieberman. He put the blame squarely on Russia which is no different from the neo-conservative line on the crisis. If Obama had wanted a foreign policy expert he should have picked Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn may have had a record cultural issues that most Democrats do not aggree with but when it comes to the Middle East and Russia, Nunn knows his stuff. Nunn opposed the first Gulf War and NATO expansion which is countrary to the supposed wisdom of the foreign policy establishment. Anyway I guess it is too late for that pick. When Obama said he would pick a VP that would disagree and challenge him, I hoped that Obama disagrees with the VP most of the time.

[fake Gucci Ring]

Anyway I guess it is too late for that pick. When Obama said he would pick a VP that would disagree and challenge him, I hoped that Obama disagrees with the VP most of the time.

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