Can Joe Biden be the Vice President of a Change administration?

We are told, time and time, from both the Obama campaign and the majority of grassroots supporters of the democratic ticket, that Obama is the "Change We Need.". That the country needs change seems beyond reproach. Even McCain has shifted his message to be that of reform rather than Bush's "Staying the course." And it was in this climate that Obama gained the nomination from the Democratic Party. He was nominated, I believe, in large part due to his opposition to both the war in Iraq and his willingness to tone down the United States’ aggressive foreign policy toward it’s perceived enemies. This is how he established himself as a “Change” candidate and differentiated himself from Hillary Clinton. However, despite his well stated sloganeering, his first executive action as said “Change” candidate was to nominate someone who has followed, and even preceded, the Neo-Conservative agenda every step of the way in both action and philosophy. An action that totally contradicts his message prior to that point.

To me, this means one of two things:

1. Obama was vaulted to prominence by his Party who saw him as an electable candidate, and in return for the favor Obama agreed to nominate the Party’s pick for VeeP.

2. Choosing Biden was purely political in that Obama is hoping it will help him avoid the weak-on-national-security smears used against Democratic candidates generally. However, this speaks no better for Obama’s “Change” candidacy because *IF* his selection of Biden was his way of showing he is strong on national security than Obama’s views on what national security is are similar to that of the GOP's. In other words, if I were going to pick a VP candidate that was strong on national security I would maybe pick someone who I felt might make us safer by toning DOWN our rhetoric to places like Russia, for instance. However, Obama selected Biden, a man who takes an aggressive and threatening position on any country he sees as our enemy. Which is quite similar to how the GOP runs their foreign policy.

I’m more inclined to think the former true because I’m probably more cynical about the American political process than most people. But neither scenario bodes well for Obama and his so-called “Change” campaign. At least not to someone who is actually interested in a change from the foreign policy of the past seven years and not just the expansion of power for the Democratic Party.

Now, as for Biden, if you want a long term view of his history I suppose his approval of the war in Iraq is a good place to start. Oh, I know, that was a long time a go and since the Surge WORKED(!) it's silly to go back and actually hold the people who authorized the thing in congress accountable, but I think it's still a significant point that he didn't have enough of a disagreement with the neo-Con theology at that point to actually raise a voice in protest. In fact, you'll remember he was at the time the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and had the power to select any speaker he wanted when his Senate hearing happened in '02. But, when the witness list came up, it was void of a single dissenter on the issue. The only people who disagreed with the war that were asked to participate were those who only disagreed with the motive, not the final outcome, such as humanitarian interventionists who argued we should invade to dispose Saddam, not to get the WMD's.

Even as the war grew more and more unpopular Biden maintained his position never demanding we exit the country, only that we add more troops to the area. His goal has always been to improve Iraq by "leaving Iraq better than we found it". Of course it's American minds that can better Iraq, not Iraqi minds according to Mr. Biden.

Though, I should not paint Biden as a totally Republican Neo-Con in his foreign policy view because, while most Republicans were opposed to Clinton's invasion of Yugoslavia, Joe Biden fully endorsed it! Calling it "absolutely correct," and claiming that if we didn't bomb them, "our interests will be badly hurt." So I suppose you could call Biden more of a bipartisan warmonger than just a party shill

Bully for him.

Also, Biden was pretty hawkish against Iraq even before 9/11. He did his fair share of saber rattling in 1998 when then UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter came to the Senate for a hearing:

http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter-nuke-sen.htm

"But that doesn't guarantee, if these sanctions are in place, that the program is going to be curtailed. Anything other than curtailed doesn't guarantee that we're going to be able to stop it. I think you and I believe and many of us believe here as long as Saddam's at the helm there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam's program relative to weapons of mass destruction.

And you and I both know and all of us here really know, and it's a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we're going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we're going to end up having to start it alone -- start it alone -- and it's going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a -- the -- taking Saddam down. (Laughter.) You know it and I know it."

Hahahahaha

AMIRITE?

So basically, in 98, he supported preemptive strike, unilateral attack, and regime change before the Bush doctrine existed. Hey, well at least he probably knows what it is. And all of this says nothing of McCain, Obama, Biden, and Palin's insistence that we need to give a war guarantee to Georgia. Because offering war guarantees to tiny countries in the middle of border disputes with super powers has never started World Wars or anything.

Change indeed, Mr. Obama.