Presidential Profiles #3: Joe Biden

A while back, I saw Joe Biden on Real Time with Bill Maher. He told a story about a recent visit to the White House. Senator Biden was meeting with President Bush to discuss Iraq. He asked the president whether it was wise to continue in Iraq and what his strategy was to combat the insurgency. The president told Senator Biden that he felt that it was wise because he "felt it in his gut." His strategy was to stay the course.

The senator than replied, "Mr President, are you suggesting that we keep troops in harm's way based on your gut feeling with no change in strategy?" President Bush paused for a moment and said, "Well, Joe, you know I seek guidance from God quite a bit and after much thoughtful prayer, I knew in my gut that to continue is the right thing to do."

"But what about the intelligence reports? The commanders on the ground? What are they saying?" Biden asked.

"I don't pay too much attention to details, " the president stated.

This exchange, if true, is frightening. It also made me like Joe Biden a little bit more because at least someone was asking some hard questions about Iraq. His foreign relations experience is vast, serving as a long time member and current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. His plan for Iraq calls for "a third way that can achieve the two objectives most Americans share: to bring our troops home without leaving chaos behind. The idea is to maintain a unified Iraq by federalizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their own regions." The key points include:

1. Keep Iraq together by giving its major groups breathing room in their own regions. A central government would be left in charge of common interests like defending the borders and distributing oil revenues.

2. Secure the support of the Sunnis -- who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue.

3. Increase, not end, reconstruction assistance but insist that the oil-rich Arab Gulf states fund it and tie it to the creation of a massive jobs program and to the protection of minority rights.

4. Hold an international conference to enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors and create a Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.

5. Begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by the end of 2007, with a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists.

I like all of this but.....

Joe Biden is also kind of a dick, which is also one of the things that makes him appealing. The bad side to his dickishness comes in the fact that one of his main convictions is his own vanity. I mean, look at the man's hair! He also voted for the war and is now against so my beef with him is the same as Hillary Clinton. At least, though, he has a plan that has some specifics to it, something that Hillary is sorely lacking.

So it is for this reason I give him a C.

Friday: Sam Brownback.