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Photo: World Economic Forum

Sen. Joe Biden,
Democratic vice presidential nominee

The decision could not have been an easy one. Easily several highly qualified candidates were under serious consideration as Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential nominee.

But in the end, Obama showed great prudence by selecting Sen. Joe Biden — one of the most profoundly decent men in Congress, a true patriot, and a man of rare character behind whom any American can stand proudly. More pointedly however, he among the candidates most provided the exact expertise the Democratic ticket previously had in short supply — stellar economic and foreign policy credentials.

Biden offers vastly more expertise handling national issues than John McCain — having served 36 years in the U.S. Senate, compared with McCain’s 22 years plus four years as a Congressman — and is regarded as a preeminent authority on crime, narcotics and foreign policy matters.

As a longtime member and current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and past chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden has served at the forefront of national crime and foreign policy debates. He fully understands the implications on global stability of threats in whatever form they may come — from Russia’s recent invasion of neighboring Georgia to man’s contribution to climate change.

And in a welcome contrast to the present administration, which seems to have scarcely a clue how to balance national security with constitutional rights considerations, Biden actually serves as an adjunct professor on constitutional law at the Widener University School of Law.

Biden also has shown a willingness to make the sort of tough decisions necessary to correct runaway budget deficits, as he did during the 1990s when supporting spending priorities that by 2000 led to a projected 10-year national budget surplus of $5.6 trillion — which the Bush administration since has turned into new debt topping $3 trillion.

He is widely respected for his bipartisan spirit on both sides of the political aisle and is a reliable leader on women’s and children’s issues, having authored among others the Violence Against Women Act and the Adam Walsh Act. He also wrote and led to passage the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which put more than 100,000 new cops on America’s streets and began a sharp reduction in violent crime throughout the rest of that decade.

Aside from his obvious professional credentials, Sen. Joe Biden is a true rarity among politicians these days for other reasons. He is the type who speaks his mind — and more importantly his heart — rather than robotically proclaiming whatever he thinks his given audience wants to hear, and the type whose moral compass can be trusted unfailingly to do the right thing for the public good.

Very few leaders, if any, would have had the chutzpah to look then-Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the eye and call him a war criminal who one day would be brought to justice for genocide — as Biden did in 1992 — and then help to shape the policies that did just that.

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