Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as running mate hasn’t helped him in the polls, and it has highlighted Obama’s lack of experience in matters of foreign policy and national security, but more than that it has given Republicans additional grounds to question Obama’s judgment.  At first glance the addition of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a man with 35 years in the Senate, might seem the perfect balance to a ticket headed by a candidate with very little experience.  The fit might look perfect on paper, but the reality does not quite live up to the promise.  A look at Joe Biden’s recent foreign policy judgment says a lot more about a possible Obama presidency than the fact that Biden has been in the Senate for 3 ½  decades.

The Hill reported of Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Convention this week:  Biden “got confused about some very simple military terminology” stating that Obama advocated for “two additional battalions in Afghanistan” when “in fact, Obama called for two extra brigades – a small verbal slip, but a significant numerical one. A brigade is composed of a varying number of battalions.”  Although an embarrassing mistake for a man hailed for his national security knowledge, that slip of the tongue was probably just that, a verbal slip.  The same cannot be said for some of Biden’s past statements.

October 2001:  Shortly following the September 11 attacks, Michael Crowley reported of Biden in The New Republic:   “At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: ‘I'm groping here.’  Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. ‘Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,’ Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.” 

And more recently:

April 2007: Biden told reporters “"The surge is not succeeding, and the president refuses to see that."

July 2007:  Biden said he had been “shot at” in the Green Zone in Iraq, but later had to “revise” that claim . 

September 2007:  Just before Gen. David Petraeus was scheduled to report to Congress, Joe Biden said President Bush's war strategy is failing and that Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, is "dead flat wrong" for warning against major changes.  "The reality is that although there's been some mild security progress, there is in fact no security in Baghdad or Anbar province where I was dealing with the most serious problem, sectarian violence.”  Biden claimed that Bush’s purpose for the surge was to buy time long enough to push the burden of the war onto the next president.  Biden said, "I will insist on a firm beginning to withdraw the troops and I will insist on a target date to get American combat forces out.”

September 9, 2007:   From an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me show you what you said in Iowa last week.  “If we do not change course in Iraq soon, you’re going to see, two years from now, helicopters hovering over our embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad with people hanging” onto “the ladders just like Vietnam.  Mark my words.”

SEN. BIDEN:  Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, I believe that.  Look, let me tell you, Tim, there is no possibility—no possibility—of a central government governing Iraq in any near term…

MR. RUSSERT:  General Petraeus said in a letter to his troops that we have not had the political reconciliation we thought we would have at this time. It’s been much slower, but there is some hope.  And then he added this:  “My sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum and wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number areas of Iraq.  We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field.” Is that what you expect him to say tomorrow?

SEN. BIDEN:  I expect him to say that.  And I really respect him.  And I think he’s dead flat wrong.  The fact of the matter is that there is—that this idea of these security gains we’ve made have had no impact on the underlying sectarian dynamic.  None.  None whatsoever…  And can anybody envision a central government made up of Sunni, Shia and Kurds that’s going to gain the trust and respect of 27 million Iraqis?  It’s not going to happen.

…

MR. RUSSERT:  Your presidential campaign is on the air with a political ad about Iraq.  Let’s watch it for a second.

(Videotape)

NARRATOR:  (From Biden political ad) In a world this dangerous, with a crisis as tough as Iraq, hard truths need to be told.  Joe Biden says this war must end now. Continued...