Questions for Joe Biden
Questions for Joe Biden
The senator talks to TIME about Kerry, Bush and foreign policy
By DOUGLAS WALLER/BOSTON
Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2004
Sen. Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, has become one of his party’s gurus on foreign policy and a key adviser to John Kerry. Biden sat down with TIME editors and correspondents this week for some blunt talk on Kerry, George Bush and foreign policy. Excerpts from that interview:
On his role in advising Kerry on foreign policy:
I’ve talked to John as much as anybody about foreign policy and made recommendations when asked. Most of what I’ve been doing for John over the last year has been as the crises of the day erupts. John would usually call sometime between 11 and 12:30 at night as he got off the trail and say, ‘How would you do this, how would handle this?’ Not that he needed my input in terms of what position he should take, but more, ‘How’s it playing, what do you think?’ And occasionally, while making up his mind particularly about Iraq and Afghanistan and dealing with the Europeans he’d want to know what should he do. So I put all my cards on the table.
“There’s a group of about five or six people, who occasionally get on an extended conference call on a specific subject with John. They’ve included [former Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright, [former U.N. Ambassador Richard] Holbrooke and [former Joint Chiefs Chairman John] Shalikashvili.” [P6: Nice start for a shadow cabinet!]
On public confidence in Bush and his national security advisers:
“The one thing that kept [Bush] up…was that he had very good people around him. That was the essence of the reason why those who voted for him were able to vote for him. He’s like all wealthy guys who are nice guys. He buys the best help he can buy…And you all wrote that now the grownups are back. Well, guess what, they don’t like the grownups. They’d rather have the kids. They don’t like Cheney. They don’t like Rumsfeld. And they’re really disappointed in Powell. They love him but they’re disappointed in Powell.”
