Tell It Like It Is
Senator Joe Biden (CT) has become one of my favorite politicians over the last couple of years because of his passion. Many politicans have zeal for the ideology they subscribe to, but Biden (and a few others, such as McCain and the late, great Paul Wellstone) is a passionate advocate for furthering the discussion of topics--and not just shutting down the other side. He's also extremely passionate about ensuring that the mistakes that have been in Iraq are corrected. Many will categorize his rants from time to time on cable news shows as partisan hackery, but he states over and over that the answers and changes he's seeking are not predicated on who wins the White House--they need to be addressed by the government of the United States, period. That said, Biden is a Democrat and has been close to Kerry in the Senate for many years, and he is no friend of this administration, which he deems as utterly incompetent. Here are some of his comments from a conference call with the Kerry campaign:

"Come on guys, get real. Get real, these guys knew where it was and even if it was gone before, which I doubt that it was, ask them the question, you’re tough reporters, ask them the question, who did you have there guarding that facility? Why the hell didn’t they know it was gone back when we went in? This makes me angry. My kid and a lot of other kids might get their ass over there and get blown up by these because of their civilian incompetence. And they’re talking about John Kerry was somehow unreasonable suggesting that this is incompetence, come on. If you think I’m upset, I am. ...

"And by the way, the one point, the main point, don’t even question whether they were there. The fact is the IAEA said they were there and the very embedded [NBC] reporter and the soldiers who has headed up the April 9th, 2003 101st Airborne Second Brigade when it reached Al Qaqaa, said quote: 'Orders were not given from higher to search or secure the facility or to search for this material, HMX.' That's what he said. Now they were told explicitly, explicitly, this site was sealed with 194.7 tons of HMX and 141.2 tons of RDX."

Likewise, Biden painted the Rumsfeld Doctrine a disaster, and described the daunting set of circumstances a Kerry administration will inherit from Bush.

"Let me remind you, Rumsfeld started off the bid saying we only needed 40,000 troops going in, CENTCOM said 380, they agreed to 250, they sent 140. You had [Gen.] Abizaid testifying last year in the United States Senate, and I quote, 'There is more ammunition in Iraq than anyplace I've ever been in my life and it's not securable, I wish I could tell you we had it all under control, we don't.' He went on to say there is certainly not enough forces anywhere to guard this ammunition in Iraq. ...

"Because of these god awful mistakes that the civilians in this Administration keep making, the bar that John Kerry is going to have to go over to make this right again, is going to be incredibly difficult. But I think he has the guts and the gumptions to do what has to be done, and to make it clear to our allies that 'Look you don't have George Bush’s incompetence to deal with anymore, you can’t fend of your responsibility by saying there’s no plan. Here’s a plan, I need your help, you need to get involved in it.' But is it going to be hard, very, very hard."