Sen. Joe Biden's WSJ op-ed: Republicans and our Enemies

[antigop]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121150000249615875.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

On Wednesday, Joe Lieberman wrote on this page that the Democratic Party he and I grew up in has drifted far from the foreign policy espoused by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy.

In fact, it is the policies that President George W. Bush has pursued, and that John McCain would continue, that are divorced from that great tradition – and from the legacy of Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Sen. Lieberman is right: 9/11 was a pivotal moment. History will judge Mr. Bush's reaction less for the mistakes he made than for the opportunities he squandered.

The president had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead – by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan, and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests – Mr. Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world.

[napi21]

1. One of the FEW rational, intelligent people in the Senate! Thanks

Senator Biden!

[antigop]

2. Biden for Secretary of State! (I hope...) n/t

[DemReadingDU]

3. very nice

thanks for sharing

[Wilms]

4. "instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan"

I've been liking Biden a bit, but that statement bothers me.

Optional? I figured you either really, really have to go to war...I mean send people to war...or you avoid it like the plague it is.