Not knowing much about Joe Biden, I just read this disturbing editorial by Stephen Zunes.... Check it out:
Incipient Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s selection of Joseph Biden as his running mate constitutes a stunning betrayal of the anti-war constituency who made possible his hard-fought victory in the Democratic primaries and caucuses....
Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the lead-up to the Iraq War during the latter half of 2002, was perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administration’s decision to invade that oil-rich country.
More on the flip...
Another key quote from Zunes:
As Scott Ritter, the former chief UN weapons inspector, noted at the time, “For Sen. Biden's Iraq hearings to be anything more than a political sham used to invoke a modern-day Gulf of Tonkin resolution-equivalent for Iraq, his committee will need to ask hard questions – and demand hard facts – concerning the real nature of the weapons threat posed by Iraq.”
It soon became apparent that Biden had no intention of doing so. Biden refused to even allow Ritter himself – who knew more about Iraq’s WMD capabilities than anyone and would have testified that Iraq had achieved at least qualitative disarmament – to testify.
Just as a thought experiment, please try to imagine an alternative Universe in which Hillary Clinton was the one who'd strongly denounced the Iraq war in 2002, and Obama voted for it. In that alternative Universe, would Obama be the Democratic nominee for President? Hell no. Clinton would have cruised to victory.
Let's get real. When you boil it down to brass tacks, Obama had two significant qualities that put him over the top in the Democratic primary: his early opposition to the Iraq war, and his unparalleled talent to inspire with his message of hope and change. But neither of those qualities were enough...both were necessary, but neither alone was sufficient, to win. A message of hope and change - without the opposition to the Iraq war - would have been ridiculous and contradictory. Think about it.
Anyway, please read the Zunes piece. Once you've read it thoroughly, please take the poll. (Please don't take the poll until you've read it!)