Biden: "Mark my words"

Joe Biden: The McCain Campaign's Best Friend
The Loft at GOPUSA.com October 21, 2008, by Bobby Eberle

Leave it to Joe Biden to say in one speech what John McCain has been unable to say for an entire campaign. Yes, there is the issue of the economy. (Obama's ties with Fannie and Freddie have barely been mentioned by McCain.) Yes, there is the issue of taxes. (McCain can't seem to explain how cutting taxes for all is better than class warfare and socialism). Yes, there are a host of issues where McCain has a better plan, but one of the most important, especially in a time of war, is that John McCain is ready to be commander-in-chief from Day 1.

Obama has no foreign policy experience and is not ready. Thankfully, Obama picked Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. This gives Biden plenty of time at the podium and plenty of opportunities to open his mouth. At a speech on Monday, he reminded everyone what the consequences will be by putting a foreign policy novice in charge of the world's strongest military...

During a speech in Seattle, Biden said, "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking." Biden added, "Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough -- I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur." [Emphasis added]

Thank you, Joe Biden! Thank you for saying what we all know to be true. When Ronald Reagan became president was the world lying in wait to test him right away? As I remember it, the day Reagan was sworn in as president was the day our American hostages were released from 444 days of captivity in Iran. America wasn't tested, it was respected.

Obama's socialist agenda puts him on the wrong side of many issues, and foreign policy stands out like a sore thumb. He would hold friendly chats with leaders such as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Doing so, of course, would lend validity to the rhetoric and actions of these people, but that doesn't seem to sink in to Obama.

Then, there is Iraq. Following the success of the major combat operations, the war was not going well at all. Terrorists were moving in, taking control of key locations, and they were winning in their mission to disrupt the transition. McCain not only supported the surge strategy, he was also one of the strategy's strongest supporters. The strategy worked, and now we hardly hear about Iraq in the news at all. I guess if there's nothing bad to report, the media will simply move on to something new like digging up dirt on Joe the Plumber.

Obama, as we all know, opposed the surge. He had no plan of his own other than to simply get out. But retreat is not a plan. Leaving Iraq unstable and in the hands of terrorists is not a plan.

McCain followed-up on Biden's comments by saying, "We don't want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars."

"What is more troubling is that Sen. Biden told their campaign donors that when that crisis hits, they would have to stand with them, because it wouldn't be apparent Sen. Obama would have the right response," added the Republican nominee, who was spending Tuesday in Pennsylvania, another battleground. "Forget apparent. Sen. Obama won't have the right response, and we know that because we've seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign."

We can all thank Joe Biden for bringing this up. His affinity for gaffes is legendary, and he may just be the best thing to happen to the McCain campaign. As compiled by Fox News, Biden's gaffes just keep on coming, including saying that Obama should have picked Hillary Clinton instead of him: "She's easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me."

Biden also tried to score points during the economic crisis by saying, "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed." However, as noted by Fox News, "Herbert Hoover was president in October 1929 when the stock market crashed. FDR wasn't elected until 1932, and television made its debut a decade later, in 1939."

Speaking about coal, Biden said told Virginia mine workers, "Hope you won't hold it against me, but I am a hard coal miner -- anthracite coal, Scranton, Pennsylvania, that's where I was born and raised." But, of course, he was never a coal miner. Fox News reports, "While his great-grandfather was a mining engineer, his father ran a Delaware car dealership and worked in the oil business. His campaign tried to spin the comments as a joke."

Biden's gaffes are great to listen to, but his latest one is also quite serious. America is at war, and we need a president who is ready to lead. McCain has to make that message clear. McCain has a better tax plan, will appoint better judges, will not engage in class warfare, and will bring his wealth of foreign policy experience to the White House. We can't afford a president whom terrorists will look to "test."