Biden-as-VP Speculation Suggest Foreign Policy Need for Obama

With Barack Obama expected to announce his vice presidential pick by Saturday, speculation that Joe Biden — the Senate’s top Democratic foreign policy expert — will be his nominee highlights fears that the presidential candidate’s inexperience in world affairs compared to Republican John McCain could be costing him in the polls. Obama, a relative newcomer on the national political scene, made history by becoming the first black candidate to lead a major U.S. political party’s presidential ticket. But he has endured a hammering by McCain, a veteran Arizona senator, combat pilot and former Vietnam prisoner of war, over what Republicans contend is his lack of national security experience and his calls for a 16-month withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. But the Illinois senator may have found a new, albeit unintended, boost from an unlikely corner as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iraqi counterpart, meeting in Baghdad, announced Thursday that the two ... (link)