VOA标准英语2008年-Obama's Running Mate is Respected Voice in Fore

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Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, newly announced running mate of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, is a respected foreign policy expert. VOA's Deborah Tate has a profile of Senator Biden, who himself had waged an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party's nomination² for president this year.
　
Senator Biden stands near airplane as soldiers unload US military cargo³ plane carrying humanitarian⁴ aid for refugees from South Ossetian conflict zone, in Tbilisi, 17 Aug 2008

Senator Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the most influential⁵ voices in foreign policy in the Democratic Party. His expertise⁶ could help counter Republican arguments that an Obama administration would be inexperienced on foreign policy.

Biden has been a vocal⁷ critic of Bush administration foreign policy, including the way it waged the war on terrorism. Although he voted in 2002 to authorize⁸ the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which Obama had opposed from the beginning, Biden became a critic of the conflict.

"The administration's basic approach to foreign policy and national security I think has been bankrupted by reality: the fixation on pre-emption, regime change and the simplistic slogans that encompass⁹ the war on terror I think literally¹⁰, not figuratively, made us less secure, made us less secure as a nation, rather than more secure," he said.

Biden told reporters earlier this year that President Bush's decisions on foreign policy will leave a more complicated situation for the next occupant of the White House.

"The next president, Democratic or Republican, hopefully from my perspective a Democrat¹, will face an almost unprecedented¹¹ series of challenges with very little margin¹² for error," he said.

Biden will soon have a personal connection to the war in Iraq. His eldest¹³ son, Beau, a captain in the Delaware National Guard, is scheduled to leave for a tour of duty in Iraq in October.

Biden himself has traveled widely, including making numerous trips to Iraq. He recently returned from a visit to the former Soviet¹⁴ republic of Georgia, made at the invitation of the embattled country's president - a trip political experts say helped raise his profile as a potential running mate for Obama.

Senator Biden is known as an outspoken¹⁵ politician.

Before he dropped out of the presidential campaign after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses¹⁶ in January, Biden said he did not think Senator Obama was ready for the White House. He said the presidency¹⁷ is "not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."

Biden also generated controversy¹⁸ when he described Obama, in a newspaper interview, as "the first mainstream¹⁹ African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy." He apologized for the remarks, which he said were meant to be complimentary²⁰ to Obama.

Obama said he did not take the remarks personally, but called them "historically inaccurate²¹", citing past African American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Political experts believe Biden's outspokenness²² could be an asset for the Obama campaign, and predict he will not hesitate to challenge Republican contender John McCain's positions on the issues. Some Democratic activists²³ believe Obama has not been tough enough on his Republican rival.

Biden ran another brief and unsuccessful campaign for president in 1988, dropping out of the race amid accusations²⁴ he plagiarized²⁵ a speech from British Labor²⁶ Leader Neal Kinnock.

The 65-year-old Delaware Democrat was first elected to the Senate in 1972.