Over the weekend Barack Obama chose his running mate. Joe Biden.
Now it was no accident I talked about how harsh of a critic Biden was on Obama before he got the Democratic nomination. The other two people on his VP short list did not have much more experience than Obama himself, and he has too big of an ego to give the nod to Clinton. Other candidates such as Wesley Clark continued to make stupid remarks, which took them out of the running. So Joe Biden was all that was left.
Biden has consistently criticized Obama for his overall lack of experience especially when it comes to foreign affairs and thinks he was not ready to be the next president. Evidently all that has changed in the last 2 months. Biden will now work for the man he considers unqualified to be President.
Biden is really no different on his views than Obama…Biden even claims Obama stole some of his ideas he had on Afghanistan. For those who do not know what is stances are on the issues, here is a quick overview.
Biden is a pro-choice advocate. He is Catholic and says he believes that life begins at conception, but then turns around and says that is ok for a woman to kill this fetus if she chooses. It sounds like standing up for the Democratic Party is more important than standing up for what he believes in. He has voted for no criminal penalty if a fetus is harmed during another crime. In addition to this, along with Obama, he voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out of state abortions.
On civil rights issues. Joe Biden supports affirmative action and even voted to allocate 10% of highway funds for women and minorities. He has a pro gay rights stance as well, which also goes against the Catholic church and what he must believe in. He differs with Obama on his stance on faith based initiatives. He opposes these initiatives that Bush has promoted during his presidency while Obama supported them. And then there is the flag desecration amendment. He voted no on recommending Constitutional ban on flag desecration. I do not think I need to elaborate on this point. Those of you who have read my past blog entries know this is something that makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
On the military, foreign affairs…to include Iraq.
The most glaring thing I saw when doing some quick research on Biden is that he has stated during this last year that he would cut 350 Billion in military programs to pay for his new government spending (ie…socialized healthcare). This statement would make my assumption correct a few weeks ago when I said the only way to pay for all of the Democrats programs is by raising taxes and cutting funding…probably from national defense. I guess history will prove me right.
Joe Biden is also another critic of the Iraq War who voted for the resolution in 2002. He is supposedly strong on foreign affairs, but he isn’t too good at making sense. He said he voted for the authorization to avoid going to war with Iraq. Biden said his vote was meant to put pressure on the UN to pass another resolution. This doesn’t make sense on two fronts. First, the UN passed somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 resolutions on Iraq and the UN was unable to enforce them and they failed to get results. What would another unbinding UN resolution really accomplish? Secondly, he authorized the use of force against Iraq. It wasn’t a resolution to send a message to the UN. A statement like this was not in the resolution. Like all presidents, Bush used diplomacy first, following in the footsteps of Clinton, but at some point you have to act.
Joe Biden is also another person who has said that the President lied about Iraq. He was quoted as saying that the President has been lying about Iraq for 7 years, it is time he tells the truth.
Here is Joe Biden in 2002.
“He must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power”
And in 2007.
“I was correct about that. I also said at the time that I did not think he had weaponized his material, but he did have these stockpiles everywhere….it turned out they didn’t, but everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. What he did with them, who knows?”
So when did the President start lying and about what. The fact is that his administration did not lie. The WMD was based on bad intelligence as Biden says above and the rest of the items in the resolution have been proven true.
Biden also disagreed with Gen Petraeus and his strategy with the troop surge that has been very successful. He contradicts himself here because he has said in the past that leaving Iraq in disarray could lead to a more prolonged region wide conflict, but when the times were the roughest (about the time of the surge), he was pushing for an immediate withdrawal like most of the rest of the democrats. So if in charge, by his own accord, his actions would have brought greater insecurity in the Middle East.
Although more knowledgeable on the military and their mission than Obama, I still am not impressed with some of his solutions for Iraq as he stated he would have done under a John Kerry Administration. He said he would refocus our efforts on providing physical and economic security in the form of electricity, fuel, and sewage removal. At the time, this is exactly what the military was doing because we did have a military, political, and infrastructure mission; not just a military mission. But you have to have physical security for the other items to happen…it is not effective to rebuild a power plant if it is just going to get blown up as soon as it is completed. Basic common sense. It is just another example of politicians not fully understanding what their military’s mission is and what we were doing in Iraq.
I am also not impressed with some of his statements on terrorist groups.
”The facts showed that terrorist groups didn’t base their training camps in countries with strong governments or dictators; they found safe haven in failed states & grew stronger in the vacuum of power.”
This one statement is partially untrue and partially misleading. Afghanistan was run by a powerful regime, the Taliban, but because they allowed al Qeada to use their country as a base, 9/11 happened. The same can be said about Iraq. It is true a terrorist group did not run the country, but they did support these groups with financing, training (3 major terrorist training camps were found during the invasion), and safe haven. One of the several terrorist groups Saddam was supporting could have just as easily carried another attack on our soil.
Sorry for spending so much time on Biden’s foreign policy / Iraq stances, but this is supposedly his strong point. I just do not see it that way.
Most of Biden’s other positions are in line with your usual Democratic Party platform. He has a pro gun control voting record, favors socialized healthcare, and opposes privatization of Social Security and expanding free trade. He is also in favor of progressive taxes. Progressive in the political sense, that is. The more money you have, the more the government will try to take from you. It is a great way to promote growth. Sarcasm intended.
I hope this covers all the basics of Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden. As you can see, when it comes down to the issues, he is no different than Obama himself. Obama wanted someone that would tell him no, but that is hard when the person already agrees with everything you do.
