A long record of being wrong

The Democrats boast of Sen. Joseph Biden's experience and disparage Gov. Sarah Palin's lack of experience.

Certainly Gov. Palin can't match Sen. Biden's experience in plagiarism. He was expelled from his law school for plagiarism, and he had to pull out of his 1988 presidential campaign because he was caught plagiarizing an English socialist's speech. No, Governor Palin is too honest to match that sort of thing.

In foreign policy, Governor Palin could never match Biden's record for flip-flopping. In 1991 Sen. Biden was against the 1991 Gulf War to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but he later admitted to making a mistake. He changed from a dove into a hawk when Clinton was elected and supported Clinton's 1993 cruise missile attack of an empty Iraqi intelligence HQ in response to Saddam's assassination plot against Bush Sr. In 1998 he strongly urged Clinton to attack Iraq because of Iraq's WMDs, and he strongly supported Clinton's four days of bombing in Operation Desert Fox. In October 2002, he voted for invasion of Iraq because of Iraq's WMDs and their attempts to obtain nuclear weapons. By 2008 he decided to be against the Iraq war in his failed bid for the Democratic nomination. After years of being for a surge to put down the post-invasion insurgency, Biden was strongly against the surge when Bush ordered it in late 2006.

In addition, Gov. Palin could never match Sen. Biden's long experience in being wrong about foreign policy, but there is no room in this letter to record all that. The Democrats must feel that with his long experience in being wrong about foreign policy maybe the odds are in his favor to get something right for once.

To her credit, Gov. Palin's experience in leadership and governing is far greater than either that of Sen Biden or Sen Obama, but the Democrats prefer to avoid that comparison

Robert Graham

Naperville