Biden's The Choice On The Left

On Saturday morning - really early if you subscribed to the Obama campaign's text message, which was sent out at a perhap's significant time of 3am - you would have found out that the VP choice on the Democratic ticket was Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

It is nice to see another politician of Irish-American heritage enter the race. From the Wikipedia entry for Senator Biden, we find that, "Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr. (1915-2002), and wife Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan (1918 -). He was the first of four siblings and is of English heritage on his father's side and Irish heritage on his mother's side. He has two brothers, James Brian Biden and Francis W. Biden, and a sister, Valerie (Biden) Owens. The Biden family moved to Claymont, Delaware, when Biden was 10-years-old, and he grew up in suburban New Castle County, Delaware, where his father was a car salesman."

So now we have an Irish-American on both sides of the race.

We wish though that we could be happier with the selection, which smacks somewhat of desperation on the part of the Obama campaign.

Obviously feeling the need to add gravitas to the ticket, to silence those who complain of Obama's lack of experience, especially in foreign policy, Senator Biden seems to fit the bill.

Unfortunately, not only was there a better choice for Senator Obama, in fact, his choice of Biden brings its own set of baggage.

From his opposition to President Reagan's foreign policy in the 1980s - which brought and end to the Cold War and the Soviet Union - to his recent suggestion that Iraq should be partitioned into three countries, divided by the ethnic breakdown of that nation, Senator Biden adds a foreign policy experience that seems flawed.

Like Obama, he opposed the 'Surge,' which has proven very successful in stabilizing the new Iraqi nation and has brought together the diverse ethnic groups there. Instead, he suggested that each ethnic group should be given its own country to run...

The implications of following that policy would have led to a 'surge' of a different kind: an ethnic bloodbath the likes of which we have not seen in Iraq since its liberation from Saddam Hussein as they fought over control of the precious oil resources in the country.

Senator Biden is also well-known on the campaign trail, famously plaguarizing then-British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock when he ran for his party's Presidential nomination in 1987.

Senator Biden should at least give journalists plenty of ammunition to use against him during the campaign, and for that we are very grateful for Obama's choice. However, another option was available to him and we still cannot discern why he rejected it. In order to unify the Democratic Party, bring gravitas to his campaign and appeal to the independent voter, we would suggest that New York Senator Hillary Clinton would have been a far better choice and one that probably would have sealed his election to the highest office. His choice may well have instead doomed him.