Posted on 07/01/2006 10:18:29 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
After more than 30 years in the United States Senate and nearly 20 years after his first try for his party’s Presidential nomination, Joseph Biden has no doubts about making another run for the White House.
“I’m in,” the Delaware Democrat said Friday as he began a five-day visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state.
“I know I’m supposed to hedge, but I’m in.”
Biden dropped out of the 1988 nomination race amid allegations of plagiarism. He then suffered a cerebral aneurysm virtually on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.
He recalls being given a 30 percent chance of surviving.
“I’m lucky,” he said. “I’m a respecter of fate. But barring something like that happening to me or my family, I am in.”
Biden said he won’t be surprised if, as the fourth longest-serving member of the Senate, he’s labeled the “consummate insider.”
But, he said, the label doesn’t really apply.
Biden, 63, realizes that among the hard left activists in his party, his stance on the Iraq war — to stay and fight until the job is done — is unpopular. But he is asking for their trust that a “neo-isolationist” foreign policy is the worst possible alternative for the country at this point in history.
Regarding the Iraq war, terrorism, and overall foreign policy, Biden considers himself a “muscular Democrat.”
In an interview at the Bedford Village Inn, Biden said the Bush administration’s policy has made the United States more vulnerable to terrorism, not less.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden said his “bluntness” and the fact that he shuns the Washington “political rounds” and “embassy rounds” will show voters he is not typical of the Capitol Hill genre.
“But the very thing that may prevent me from being viewed as the consummate insider is the very thing that may get me in trouble — and that is a tendency to say what I think,” he said.
While he is employing consultants, such as long-time friend former Democratic national chairman David Wilhelm, who managed Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, Biden said, “I’ll have my counsel be my own counsel.”
While admitting to being “agnostic” on what he considers less important issues, Biden said, “There are certain core things I’m not prepared to back off on,” including, he said, a belief that Sens. John Kerry and Russell Feingold’s calls to withdraw troops from Iraq by a specified date in mid-2007 is a mistake.
Biden said 2008 may also be “the one year maybe in the better part of a century when it’s much better to be a senator than a governor. I don’t think the country is looking for on-the-job training.”
He said four of the seven Presidents he has served with were former governors, and each “took at least two years to figure out what their foreign policy was. And I think the public is looking for someone who seems to have strength and the substance, the intelligence, to implement what he or she says."
Biden said his Senate experience “is the thing that’s given me the confidence to believe I’m the best qualified person to be President. I’m wrong about a lot of things, but I haven’t been very wrong about the foreign policy side of the equation.”
A key missing component of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, Biden said, is the ability to “project to the world what your values are, and what you value.”
“We need a much, much, much more robust doctrine of public diplomacy,” said Biden, including programs not unlike the cold war’s Radio Free Europe.
He said Donald Rumsfeld should resign as defense secretary in the wake of the Haditha killings to show the world “we take responsibility for mistakes and we’re ready to change.”
The United States must remain the world’s most powerful force by expanding the military and moving from reliance on high-tech weapons “to having a force large enough to be able to deal with the exigencies of the world.”
But even as a “muscular Democrat,” he said, “the rules of engagement are very different for me.
“It’s a matter of having to rebuild alliances by rebuilding faith in our country. Other countries don’t doubt our physical might. They doubt our judgment. That’s where we’ve been so badly damaged.”
Biden said a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week outlawing military tribunals for detainees suspected of terrorism was valuable.
“When we depart from the rule of law, does it help us or hurt us in our overall fight and objective, to take on terror?” said Biden. “It hurts us, and the court’s decision is positive and will help us in the international community.”
Biden said he proposed opening discussions with Iran immediately after 9/11, when thousands marched in the streets to show empathy for the United States. “There was an opportunity because the Iranians were worried about terror turning on themselves.”
He said Bush refused to negotiate.
Biden said Bush correctly handled Afghanistan, “but then the hubris began. We defeated the Taliban almost too quickly, and (the administration) immediately turned their attention away from solidifying Afghanistan, nailing the Taliban and bin Laden, and turning to this new adventure (in Iraq).
“In retrospect, it’s clear to me they had no intention of doing anything other than going to war in Iraq,” Biden said. “This is going to (go) down as the single most tragic foreign policy mistake of this century.”
Biden said that if the United States had not gone to Iraq, Saddam Hussein, “left unfettered,” would have gained access to a nuclear weapon in five to seven years.
But if “we had kept the no-fly zone going, inspections, and if the Kurds had continued building a serious state that was growing, you would have continued to put pressure on Saddam, and I think we would have eventually brought Saddam down in a process where his own military would have decided he was too much of an impediment for them.”
Biden said that with Saddam at least contained, “we could have been able to keep the rest of the world with us and focused on really doing what the President promised us. By now, we would have crushed the Taliban and would have had a much better chance of having eradicated the bulk of al-Qaida and bin Laden.”
Now, Iranian leaders "like things just the way they are," said Biden. "We’re tied down and there is no full-blown civil war.
"The irony of all ironies is that Tehran is much more secure today because Saddam’s gone and the Taliban is gone," he said. "They ought to be sending us a 'thank you' note.
"It did not have to be this bad."
Biden - the perpetual lunatic Presidential candidate.
Biden considers himself a foreign policy expert?
I recall some kind of "mano e mano" (sp) comment he made about the desirability of leaders dueling to settle international disputes — something like that. Perhaps someone on the thread remembers more details. Anyway — doesn't sound like much expertise to me.
Mike Gravel announced his candidacy quite a while back...can Joe Biden really overcome Gravel's head start?
He is an Official member of the "Hair Club for Girlymen and the New Castroti"!
LLS
There are a couple in the possible field who certainly aren't idiots.
Your right and sadly I wish I would have "gotten" that when I was writing the response.
Hey, since the DUers say that Bush was "selected, not elected" doesn't that mean we can run him again?
Maybe that's what he's thinking....
;)
Same 'ol, same 'ol....all they have is negativity and whining--slamming our side for trying to actually DO something.
A "Flock of Feculence"..??
Off the map stupidity. And this guy brags about his foreign policy.
Sorry Joe. That office will always be above your pay grade.
The forty thieves?
As president of Hair Club for Men?
Heh. Back in 1988 C-Span broadcast a roast of Bill Bradley, where the main roasters were the Democratic Candidates. Biden, commenting on "The Seven Dwarves" name said he thought they should be called something better, "Like the Magnificant Seven." Then he ran his hand across his head and said, "I guess we know who gets to be Yul Brynner."
About a new name for the dem 08 contenders for pres, how about 'A Gaggle of Goodfornothings'?
Did he use Kerry's old candidate declaration speech?
“In retrospect, it’s clear to me they had no intention of doing anything other than going to war in Iraq,” Biden said. “This is going to (go) down as the single most tragic foreign policy mistake of this century.”
The left is still running around with straight faces saying Iraq has nothing to do with the WOT.
The Administration doesn't seem to be interested in calling them on it either.
I guess Saddam and Iraq was not a terrorist state until we went in.
At least thats what the DNC is saying
Democrat Socialists Radio Address- July 1, 2006:
We need this kind of leadership today. I'm running for the Senate in the hope that I might bring a fresh voice, and an experienced set of eyes, onto the problems of our country. We need to redirect the efforts of our national security posture.
We need to bring the Iraq War to an early and honorable end. We need to begin bringing troops home soon, as the first step toward a complete military pullout from that country. We must do this in order to free up our dedicated military people to fight the war we need to win – the war against international terrorism - and so that we can have the mobility to confront the other strategic challenges, such as the threat of an emerging China.
If I am elected, I will work toward those goals. And those who are serving our country will have no greater friend.
I'm Jim Webb, from Virginia. Thanks for listening.
That the DNC could still be claiming that Iraq is not part of the WOT is a stunning testament to the utter incompetent and pathetic performance ot the White House PR machine.
Er, what happened to his "I'd rather stay home every day and make love to my wife than run for President" quip Biden made just a week ago? I guess he put his glasses back on.
ROFLOLOLOL
Oh good, another elitist Democratic Senator who's been wrong about every foreign policy iniative since Ronald Reagan.
Where's Christpher Dodd?
Seriously though, it must still burn him up to think that his campaign was derailed because of plagiarism, and to think of all the things that Bill Clinton got away with.
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