What Biden offers Obama - E.J. Dionne

[groovedaddy]

The scene has stayed with me for six years: Democrat Jill Long Thompson, in the midst of a fiercely competitive race in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District, was being pressed by supporters to criticize what they saw as President Bush's rush to war in Iraq.

She would have none of it, explaining that her differences with Republican Chris Chocola were on domestic economic issues, not foreign policy. In her district, she said later, "we will support our president, and we will support our troops."

It was like that all over the country in 2002: Democrats in large numbers ran away from foreign policy or just said "me, too." Many went down to defeat, including Long Thompson, though last month she won the Democratic nomination for governor.

Things have changed in six years. For one thing, Chocola was voted out in 2006 when frustration over Iraq helped the Democrats sweep to power in the House. Barack Obama is unabashed this year in repeating everywhere he goes that the Iraq war "should never have been authorized and should never have been waged."

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/OPINION04/806100330/1054/OPINION