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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Biden: McCain would deepen US 'hole' -- Assails judgment on Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan CINCINNATI - Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden delivered a withering critique of John McCain's national security and foreign policy yesterday, saying the Republican presidential nominee would "dig us in a deeper hole" instead of making the country safer and restoring America's position in the world. In what the campaign billed as a major foreign policy address, the Delaware senator said McCain had shown poor judgment in the war on terror, saying he was "dangerously wrong" to focus on Iraq rather than the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. Biden cast McCain's diplomatic judgment as seriously ill considered, calling his rhetoric on Iran "saber rattling" and ridiculing him for saying he would not meet with Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In contrast, he said, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, calling it a distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda, and he has shown willingness to meet with foreign leaders, including those from hostile nations. "We need more than a great soldier, we need a wise leader, and that leader is Barack Obama," he said. Biden's speech gave him the chance to try to shift the focus away from a string of gaffes he has made in the past few days - and which the Republicans have gleefully seized on, even devoting a website to Biden's misstatements. It was also timed to coincide with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's series of encounters with foreign leaders at the annual opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York, offering a contrast between Palin's novice status in the realm of foreign policy with Biden's more than 30 years of experience. However, the Republican National Committee noted later yesterday that Biden had mistakenly said in his speech that the Bush administration had sent a top diplomat to Tehran for talks with Iran. Undersecretary of State William J. Burns did meet Iranian diplomats in July, but in Switzerland, not Iran. The RNC also said Biden misspoke in saying the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, had said he wasn't sure the United States was winning in Iraq, but that Mullen's comment in July referred to Afghanistan. In testimony to Congress in August 2007, Mullen did say it wasn't clear the United States was winning in Iraq. In response to Biden's speech, McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said: "Joe Biden, the senator-turned-salesman, has gone through so many disjointed transformations on Iraq that he no longer represents credible leadership on the issue. . . . He has abandoned his criticisms of Senator Obama, and his own firmly held beliefs, in order to reflect Barack Obama's record of trying to legislate failure in Iraq and ambition-first style of leadership." Biden, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a senator since 1973, spoke with his usual confidence, frequently venturing off-script as he tried to illustrate his familiarity with the issues and characters dominating the world stage. After the recent invasion of Georgia by Russia, Biden said he got a personal call from President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to come to Tbilisi. Biden spoke to a crowd of about 900 in the soaring atrium of the Cincinnati Museum Center, where President Bush came in 2002 to make his case for attacking Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to disarm, and where Democrat John Kerry delivered an address during the 2004 campaign criticizing the Bush administration's handling of the war. On ending the war in Iraq, he said, Obama has long argued for a slow withdrawal of US troops, a position he said the Bush administration tacitly conceded by beginning negotiations with the Iraqi government on a drawdown, he said. "The surge is over, and the political reconciliation it was supposed to produce has not materialized," Biden said. "John McCain doesn't have an answer, except to stay indefinitely." McCain has argued that the US may need to maintain a longer-term presence in Iraq but he said he hopes to have combat troops removed by 2013. Biden said Obama also showed the right instincts by arguing that the United States should shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are making a comeback and Al Qaeda is flourishing. He said the Bush administration had also wound up essentially agreeing with Obama on that point. "John McCain is the only one who doesn't get it - so much for judgment," he said. © Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
Poster Comment: You rock Joe, thanks.
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#2. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Because nothing instills more confidence than saying "See? At least Dubya agrees with me." We'll fight it right and get the job done. Sure the job is a fool's errand, but that's minor details. The economy is in a tail spin, debt is at record levels, and all these idiots offer is more wars.
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