John McCain's first critical national security decision of the presidential campaign was picking Sarah Palin to step in if anything were to happen to him. That says all we need to know about his judgment.
After Palin is done with all the photo ops, I want to hear her deliver a major foreign policy address -- or at least answer some real questions on the subject. Here are some excerpts from Biden's address today:
Our country is less secure and more isolated than it has been at any time in recent history. This administration has dug America into a very deep hole around the world at a time our leadership is needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century.“ A central question for this election is which candidate will keep digging that hole…and which candidate will dig us out of that hole – indeed which candidate has the judgment and the vision to renew the promise of America in the world. It won’t surprise you who I believe that candidate is: Barack Obama. But it is equally clear who that candidate is not: John McCain...All well and good, Joe Biden. But, there's the Palin/McCain campaign has established a new standard for foreign policy and national security: can you see a foreign country from Delaware? I don't think so.
This week, John talked about the judgment required to be Commander in Chief. He’s right: nothing is more important than judgment. But time and again, on the most critical national security issues of our time, John McCain’s judgment was wrong. Right after the terrorists attacked us on 9-11, John responded by urging that we consider attacking countries other than Afghanistan, including Iraq, Iran and Syria. In the run up to the war in Iraq, John insisted that we would be greeted as liberators… that we didn’t need a lot of troops… that victory was imminent. Then, he said he wasn’t worried about Afghanistan… that we would “muddle through”… and he declared Afghanistan to be “a remarkable success. In John’s judgment, there is nothing to talk about with Tehran. And he has one idea for dealing with Russia: kick it out of the Group of Eight nations...
In John’s judgment, it is not the federal government’s responsibility to protect us here at home. He voted again and again against fully funding cops and firefighters… against interoperable communications so that our first responders can talk to each other… against screening more cargo on planes and ships… against better security for our tunnels, trains, ports and chemical plants. It is John’s judgment that six years into the war in Iraq, we should keep spending $10 billion a month… indefinitely… at a time Iraq is running an $80 billion surplus.
