Even though it's been days since it happened, Joe Biden's speech to the Democratic Nation Convention, to accept his vice Presidental part of the ticket has stuck with me. Much ahs been made of other pronouncements the man has made, and his record examined, but to see the measure of the man, I don't think we have to look beyond this one speech.
That's the America that George Bush has left us, and that's the future John McCain will give us. These are not isolated discussions among families down on their luck. These are common stories among middle-class people who worked hard and played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays.
That promise is the bedrock of America. It defines who we are as a people. And now it's in jeopardy. I know it. You know it. But John McCain doesn't get it.
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John McCain is my friend. We've known each other for three decades. We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.
But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example,
John thinks that during the Bush years "we've made great progress economically." I think it's been abysmal.
And in the Senate, John sided with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Give me a break. When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that's not change; that's more of the same.
Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history--a half trillion dollars in the last five years--he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That's not change; that's more of the same.
Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That's not change; that's more of the same.
He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that's not change; that's more of the same.
And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that's not change; that's more of the same.
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As we gather here tonight, our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole with very few friends to help us climb out. For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.
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Again and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.
Folks, remember when the world used to trust us? When they looked to us for leadership? With Barack Obama as our president, they'll look to us again, they'll trust us again, and we'll be able to lead again.
The John McCain painted by Joe Biden is not a great person. He doesn't care about the poor. He refuses to help those who struggle, while going out of his way to make the rich richer, at the expense of the poor. He refuses to give cheap affordable energy to everyone, and instead wants us to continue to fund terrorism. He has emboldened our enemies and is making Americans less safe. Quite frankly, his foreign policy will end up killing scores of Americans, both soldier and civilian, and will lead to piles of dead bodies. Because of McCain, Israel may be annihilated, Georgia razed by Russia, Tibet run over with Chinese tanks. All because McCain won't just sit down and talk with these people and tell them the error of their ways. This John McCain is pretty damned evil, or, at the very least, cruelly indifferent. This John McCain has killed the American dream!
So why the hell is this man Joe Biden's friend? Why the hell would Joe Biden have a 30 year friendship with such a man, who is responsible for so much suffering? As Biden himself would say:
You know, I believe the measure of a man isn't just the road he's traveled; it's the choices he's made along the way.
So, for 30 years, Joe Biden has willingly associated with McCain. Either McCain is the monster he is, and Biden overlooked it, working on legislation with him out of political expediancy, or Biden is lying about his long time friend, and villifying him to advance his political career. Either way that's the bedrock of Washington politics. And, as Joe Biden now likes to say:
"That's not change; that's more of the same."
