Senator Joe Biden Throws Thunderbolts

There are days when politics feels a lot like sports. You can celebrate the victories for weeks, and rue the defeats for years. And regardless of how many teams there are in the league, there are never really more than two- your guys and the other guys. (Of course, if politics were like 2004-2005 sports, the Boston team would always be winning, and therefore Kerry would be in the White House. Oh well.)

Obviously, politics is a lot more complex, because you don’t root for your entire team. There are plenty of different voices in the Democratic Party, and on the left as a whole. Some of the people in the Party barely even qualify as liberal in the first place- Zell Miller being the obvious example. But there’s actually an unpleasant crew of Democrats called the Blue Dogs. They take their name from the old Southern “Yellow Dog Democrats” (i.e. their constituents would vote for a yellow dog, before they voted against the Democrats.) The Blue Dogs are socially conservative Democrats who are mainly from Southern states, and they love to vote against the party line just about every time an important vote comes to the floor.

Anyway, everybody’s got a team- Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whatever- and within those teams, political nerds like me have a few players that they really like. Not just your own elected representatives, since they occasionally suck, but the ones you agree with, almost every time they say anything. These guys might not have the most promising future, or might not make the evening news every night, but we like them- cringe at their scandals and applaud whenever they score political points.

Tom Daschle was one of my favorites. He represented the Democratic Party when it was truly a big tent. He was able to appeal to the progressive instincts of a socially conservative state, anchor the party in the American heartland, and avoid looking wishy-washy. And he was a damn good politician, too. He used his decades of Washington experience to work the system and effect change for the people who put him in office.

Of course, Tom Daschle isn’t playing anymore. So, if Capitol Hill was a fantasy football draft, I’d have a couple other picks for my team. North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy is one of them. A former insurance commissioner, Pomeroy- who I actually got to know during my time on Capitol Hill a few years ago- represents a rural, socially-conservative state whose people still recognize the need for a progressive approach to education and the economy.

Wesley Clark is another one. If it hadn’t been for the fickle nature of the New Hampshire primaries, Wes Clark could be President today. Should be President. Wesley Clark had a progressive agenda with a smart Iraq policy and the guy spent his entire career in the military. Democratic strategists have dreams about a guy like him, and because he couldn’t rile up the Granite State, his candidacy faltered. Christ. Wesley Clark would have embarrassed George W. Bush on the campaign trail and the Values Voters would have been split right down the middle. I’m keeping my eye on him because I can see him as a senator or, God willing, a Presidential candidate in 2008.

But if anyone would be the all-star on my fantasy political team, it would be Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, who proves that the size of the state you represent is not proportional to your influence in Washington. (Can you name a Texas Senator? I can’t. Okay, fine, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, but she’s evil.) Joe Biden is a center-left Democrat from Delaware who’s been around for a good long time. There are four Senate committees that actually get things done: Appropriations, Foreign Relations, Judiciary, and Select Intelligence. He’s on the Judiciary and the ranking Democrat on Foreign Relations- in the Democratic Senate, he was the Chairman. It would be safe to say that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to foreign policy.

This is good, because he’s a staunch opponent of the Iraq war for the same reasons I am. We went in there to find weapons of mass destruction and therefore make the world a safer place. Now the administration claims it’s about “spreading freedom and democracy.” If Bush had said we were going into Iraq just to spread freedom and democracy, Colin Powell would have thrown Donald Rumsfeld off the roof of the White House. So Biden- and I- are pretty upset about the way the war is going, because something like 1,300 Americans have gotten killed in a war that was launched to find imaginary weapons.

The difference between Joe Biden and me, is that he has the ability to do something other than whining about it on his web page. Specifically, he can put people like Condoleeza Rice in the hottest of hot seats. And this brings us to the #1 reason why Joe Biden is my hero- when it comes to the important issues, he doesn’t talk like a politician. He says the things we all wish we could say to the guys who are screwing things up. (The following quotations came from CNN.com.)

Last week, during the Rice confirmation hearings, Biden decided to- in political terminology- beat the snot out of soon-to-be-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. I read the transcript later and it was like reading the play-by-play of this year’s Red Sox Game 7 against the Yankees. It just made me ecstatic.

Biden set the tone pretty quick. “It seems to me, Dr. Rice, that you have danced around [the issue of Iraq] and…stuck to the party line, which seems pretty consistent. You’re always right. You never made any mistakes. You’re never wrong.”

He kept going, saying he hoped that Rice would have the courage to say, “Hey, boss, it’s not going that well. Hey, boss, read a little history.” (You would think that such statements wouldn’t require that much courage, but when it comes to the Bush administration, it does, and I understand why. If for a moment they admit they’ve done anything wrong, their whole demented foreign policy unravels.)

“God love you, please do us a favor,” Biden told her. “Start to tell us the whole deal.” (At this point, I was practically cheering.) “And for God’s sake, don’t listen to Rumsfeld, he doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about.”

So what’s the conclusion here? (Other than Joe Biden being the thunderbolt-flinging God of Kicking Ass?) The point is that, while Republicans may have control of Congress and the White House, there are plenty of Democrats out there who are not about to roll over and let the newly-re-elected (shudder) Bush team just do what they want. The important thing is that we maintain that fighting spirit.

Obviously, we don’t have the luxury of setting our own agenda- it’d be impossible to count how many Democratic bills get killed before they even see the floor of the House or Senate. And we can’t fight every Republican initiative- some are worth actually supporting, and many aren’t worth the effort it will take to fight them- because if we do, we’ll come out looking like obstructionists who are still sore after 2004.

The important thing is that we fight for the stuff that needs to be fought for. Stem cells. Health care. Fixing the steaming pile of ineffectiveness that is No Child Left Behind. And for God’s sake, opposing any new Rumsfeld-powered adventures in the Middle East. I know Joe Biden will be leading the charge when that fight comes. And if we stick to our guns, then come November 2006, we can really win one. Kicking the neoconservatives out of Congress so we can finally rein in the excesses and ignorance of the Bush administration.


(Post script: For those of you who aren't from the great state of Delaware and want more information, Joe Biden's office runs a great website, and it's worth checking out.)