Saturday, August 23, 2008
It's Biden. It's Biden.
It's Biden, it's Biden. The Hamlet-like angst is over. Obama made a decision. A good one.
The candidate of Change has chosen an old hand, sort of like John McCain, but not as much an independent maverick. Like McCain, Biden has experience of international matters, from years on the Foreign Relations Committee. Like McCain, Biden is someone who knows how to work with the opposition to craft legislation. In many ways, Obama has chosen a McCain look-a-like as his running mate.
Maybe Biden will deliver Pennsylvania, which seems to be the calculation, and provide Obama some substance, which seems more an already fading hope. Or, then again, the distance between Biden's long life's march, many experiences, tragedies, Biden's knowledge of Washington and of the world, and up-close-and-personal awareness of his mortality, will make all the more stark the deficiencies of Obama.
Biden was given a 100% approval rating from the American Public Health Association (APHA). He supports funding for health care to allow all people access. Biden is opposed to the privatization of Social Security and was given an 89% approval rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), reflecting a pro-senior citizen voting record. Voted in support of welfare block grants and supports welfare reform.
This is good. Very good. But,
Biden voted in favor of the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
Biden was forced to change his view, or be subject to a despicable ritual expulsion, spelled Lieberman, and later said it was a mistake. This was a political decision for which he really can't be blamed. Can he?