|
Democrats gathered at their annual Jamboree in Cape Henlopen State Park, Aug. 27, to eat fried chicken and hot dogs, shake hands with party leaders and hear from the man who would be president if Delaware Democrats have a say.
More than 400 Democrats from throughout the state attended the event, said party officials.
The man people clearly wanted to hear from – Sen. Joe Biden – didn’t disappoint the party faithful as he criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy but explained that America shouldn’t suddenly leave that country.
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, Lt. Gov. John Carney, State Treasurer Jack Markell and State Insurance Commissioner Matt Denn all took turns at the microphone talking about recent party victories and the election challenges ahead.
After introducing his family, Biden quickly abandoned the undersized public address system, moved to the center of the pavilion, stood on a picnic table bench and used pure lungpower to address the crowd.
“Can you hear me better this way?” Biden asked as the crowd responded with enthusiastic applause.
“We have reason to be optimistic, as a party and as a nation. I know you’re frustrated. America’s frustrated for all the opportunities this administration has squandered. This is not a partisan comment, it’s a factual comment,” Biden said. As though they were an audience of churchgoers, some in the audience said “amen” as Biden spoke.
“The truth of the matter is when George Bush came into office five years ago, President Clinton and the Democrats had left him a surplus of roughly $250 billion a year,” Biden said.
He said Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in testimony before Congress had said the debt was being paid down too quickly.
“You know, sometimes we Democrats forget what we did. He actually said he was worried about deflation.
“Well, this boy fixed that real well,” Biden said to laughter and applause.
Biden said the nation is now experiencing the largest system-wide debt and the biggest trade deficit the nation has ever seen.
“This guy has taken us, Bush and the Republicans, from this opportunity of promise to this place where, once again, this is not hyperbole, he’s going to need Democrats to save him again. It’s not a joke,” Biden said.
Biden said he’s angry about America’s position in Iraq because Bush initially misled the country and misunderstood what would be encountered there.
“He misreads the circumstances on the ground today. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can prevail in Iraq. We can do this. But I’m beginning to despair,” Biden said.
He said with nearly 2,000 service men and women killed and more American amputees per month than any war in U.S. history, the military still doesn’t have the equipment needed to do the job.
“It is an outrage,” Biden said as the audience sat in silence.
He said some of his fellow party members are now, and would continue to be, mad with him.
“We can’t walk away now. The reason we can’t walk away is because if we do, mark my words, this ain’t Vietnam,” Biden said.
He explained that the politics of America’s Vietnam War effort and the rise of communism in Southeast Asia posed no imminent threat to the country.
“If we have to leave Iraq prematurely, there will be a civil war. You may say, ‘who cares?’ Let me tell you who cares. You will take Afghanistan and the Taliban and import them into the middle of the Middle East. You will find that for a generation, there will be more terrorism in the region and visited upon us than you’ve ever seen,” Biden said.
Biden said before U.S. military involvement in Iraq, al-Qaida wasn’t there. “But they are there now,” he said.
Biden said in one of two ways, the United States would be out of Iraq by the end 2006.
“Either because we have squandered every opportunity and squandered the lives of our folks and we lost. Or because there is a stable government in place, not a democracy,” Biden said.
Biden said he thinks Bush is patriotic and believes he’s doing the right things but is an ideologue who misunderstands the issues and doesn’t care about middleclass Americans.
Nancy Sykes of Lincoln said she liked what Biden had to say.
“He was very honest about our problems overseas, and that’s what the American public needs to hear. We should bring our troops home, but it’s a mess over there,” she said.
Larry Savage of Milton said Biden’s comments impressed him.
“I wish we could get him to run for president because he’s very knowledgeable and he really fights for us in Washington,” Savage said.
Missing from the event was U.S. Rep. Tom Carper, who couldn’t make it after being caught in southern Florida by bad weather while on a Boy Scout High Adventure Sea event.
|
