Vice President Joe Biden for President

By TRB

I know you are out there Mr. Joe Biden. I know you have been told to keep your mouth shut because you are inclined to speak at times before you think. This, however, is a rather minor handicap compared to the inability of your boss to solve even easy puzzles. I like you Mr. Biden. I like you because you are not a "new democrat," one of those republicrat creatures who could destroy every social safety net and still call himself a democrat. I trust you Mr. Biden with the legacy of FDR. I think someone has to be entrusted to protect that legacy. You are that man.

You can criticize Barack Obama from practically any side and he had no defenses. Not even the Bush defense. That defense continues to weaken with time and is quickly becomming irrelevant. This time around the question is going to be "What have you done for us Barack Obama?" Yes the question sounds selfish. But this man is in the White House to make the U.S. a better place to live. And that is what he promised to do. Remember, we can't really blame Bush anymore. It is more than just a minor technicality that he has been gone for too long.

And yes, while he did start the illegal war with Iraq and the war with Afghanistan, it is you Mr.President who has expanded troop strength in Afghanistan and has come up with a new slow-motion way for us to withdraw from Iraq. Yes sir, slower even than the withdrawal from Vietnam. And those young men and women coming home in those boxes, had been off fighting those useless wars for you - they are yours too. The jobless economy belongs to you. This lack of an industrial base. The criminality that passes as "business as usual" in our local banks and on Wall Street - on your back, Mr. President. You have even hired executives from the most corrupt Wall Street investment houses to work in our White House.

We watch the fraudclosure program you allowed the banks to design, then you gave it them to oversee as well. We watch as the banks steal even more money while promising the debtor he or she can keep the house, only to throw them to the street within a year or two.

We are not surprised that you have allowed the banks to rip us off, that you have sat back and looked the other way as Wall Street sold bad bonds and stole the pension funds of millions of Americans. And you? You did nothing. And we know why you did nothing. Because those banks, those Wall Street crooks, they own you, Mr. President. And you are every bit as responsible for their theft as they are. The banks and the money speculators paid for your ride to the White House the last time, and you have rewarded them with trillions of dollars that our children and grand children will be paying off for generations.

The problem for you this time Mr.President is that too many people who voted for you, know what you have done and haven't done. The bankers can't help you this time. Wall Street can't help you. No has the kind of money you would need for another ride.

And that is what Joe Biden and the entire democratic party should be thinking about right at this very moment. This is a failed Presidency. It is not going to get any better. It can only get worse. We know, for example, that if Obama wanted to, he has the Constitutional power to raise the debt ceiling without permission from Congress. Instead, he has chosen to sit at the table with politicians who want to hurt the already hurting working class American and the poor. He has chosen to open Pandora's box when he doesn't have to.

There is even a rumor that Obama is willing to talk about cuts or changes to Social Security if the Congress will "allow" him to raise the debt ceiling. There will be talks about taking more money from social welfare programs, from programs for children, for the elderly, for public schools, etc. Everything is on the table all the time for Barack Obama who has stabbed his supporters in the back on more than one occasion.

Biden has to take note of all of this.The ranking democrats have to understand that Obama will lose this time out. My guess is he will lose by a landslide if the republicans can get the right person to run against him. Obama is out of arguments and out of defenses. What can he say about this unemployment that won't go away? What can he say about his failure to fix the trade treaty between the U.S. and China? What can he say about his failure to get our troops home? Why are we giving more money to the Defense Dept. than to social programs during a period of such high unemplyment and with so many people homeless?

Obama has too much explaining to do, and very little of it can be explained. Why, for example, has he not ordered his attorney general, Eric Holder, to investigate the massive abuse of law and the public fraud on Wall Street? Why are all the original "police state" provisions of the "Patriot Act" still in place, when he promised during his campaign that he would modify the act to guarantee individual rights? Somewhere along the line, he forget to do that in a meaningful way.

All of his major promises of change have been hollow We have changed all right - changed for the worse.

Remember back when Jimmy Carter was doing a not-so-great job in the White House? Although we must now admit, he was never this terrible. Sen. Ted Kennedy knew Carter wouldn't be re-elected. The polls were not looking good. The word on the street was even worse. Sort of like it is for this president. Unfortunately, Ted ran against him in the primary and the public wasn't ready for Ted so soon after that car accident resulting in the death of a young woman. We got Ronald Reagan out of that. But if another Dem had run against Carter in the primary, he probably would have beat him. And he might have beaten the ex-movie star too.

That's why Biden and other democrats have to meet and they have to meet soon. I believe the Dems should also meet with Obama and ask him to step aside, and they should do it soon. When LBJ announced his intention to step down after his first term, it didn't leave the Dems enough time to mount a good campaign. We wound up with Richard M. Nixon. Of course if RFK had not been assassinated, he too had a good chance of winning. So that is not the greatest of arguments.

People say that Biden would be disloyal to Obama - not if Obama stepped down and endorsed his vice president.

You have to remember, most economic indicators point to things being even worse when the next presidential election comes around. By then Obama will probably have agreed to make changes to Social Security and Medicare (It is almost as though he can't help himself.). He can forget about the working class vote, he can forget about the elderly vote. The rise in college tuition and the cuts in programs to help students with those increased payments will keep a large percentage of the college vote in the dormitory on election day. Yes, he will get the African American vote. And yes, it is not enough to put him back in the White House.

So picture this. A republican in the White House and possibly a republican House and Senate. We know, because they and their Tea Party allies have said as much, that the real republican agenda is to make life easier for those who already have an easy life. The republicans want to dismantle that part of the U.S. government that protects the poor, women, people of color, gays and lesbians.

In a significant way, the republicans want to make life even more miserable than it already is for many Americans today. Why would they want to do that? Because your misery is an extra summer home for a wealthy person, and more money in the campaign chest for a republican.

This is what Obama, Biden and the leading democrats have to remember. This is their duty.

Joe Biden and the leading democrats have got to sit down and discuss this predicament. We have watched the democrats for years now as they have ignored every warning sign that has come their way.

They - and we - can not afford to ignore this one.