Text 3846, 105 rader
Skriven 2004-10-20 17:59:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Biden
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I hope Bush now realizes that you cannot reach across the isle to these 
clowns.  They must be defeated; all of them...

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http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/10/20bidenbushbrain
d.html

Biden: Bush 'brain dead' on drug bill
Del. GOP says senator's remark went too far
By MIKE BILLINGTON / The News Journal 
10/20/2004Sen. Joe Biden rallied supporters for John Kerry's 
presidential campaign Tuesday with a blistering attack on Bush 
administration policies that he said hurt retirees and working-class 
Americans. 

Biden criticized the administration's prescription drug policies and 
their impact on consumers. "He is brain dead," Biden said of the 
president. His comment was greeted with loud applause at the UAW Local 
435 union hall in Cranston Heights but quickly drew the ire of Delaware 
Republicans. 

"Sen. Biden should be ashamed of his below-the-belt rhetoric and 
personal attacks on the president," said David Crossan, executive 
director of the state's Republican Party. "Challenging policies is one 
thing, but calling someone 'brain dead' crosses the line." 

Many of the union members and retirees who attended the rally didn't 
think Biden's comments were out of line. 

They said in the past they often crossed party lines to support the late 
U.S. Sen. Bill Roth, a conservative Republican who spent more than three 
decades in the Senate, and continue to vote for U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, a 
moderate Republican. However, they would have a hard time supporting 
Bush, they said, because of his administration's policies. 

"The senator wasn't talking the political talk, he was pretty 
straightforward. That's what we wanted and that's what we got, straight 
talk," said Bill Wasik, Local 435's vice president. "Basically, the 
senator said that the Bush administration isn't listening to the working 
men and women, and that's true." 

Local 435 recording secretary Nancy Smith said that while Biden's speech 
was "very emotional" she did not think his comments were off base. 

"He spoke from his heart about what's at stake for all labor and all 
working-class people in America," she said. "He talked about issues that 
definitely affect us. These are serious issues for us, and he talked 
about what could happen if we don't make a change." 

Biden touched on a wide range of issues during a speech in which he 
walked among audience members, stopping to shake hands with people whose 
names he wove into anecdotes. 

Wasik and other members of the audience said they are concerned about 
the war in Iraq. They worry because it seems the White House has no 
clear strategy for getting U.S. troops out of there. 

"It's a quagmire," Wasik said. "We support our troops, of course, but we 
know now that the war in Iraq didn't turn out to be what they said it 
was going to be about. I think that the war should be in Afghanistan. 
That's where the terrorists are, not in Iraq." 

Biden discussed the war during his speech and later told reporters the 
United States and its allies must send large numbers of soldiers to Iraq 
to guarantee free elections 

in 2005, just as they did in Afghanistan this year. The Bush 
administration may not have the political will nor the international 
credibility to ensure that happens, he said. 

Biden's attack on the Bush administration's policies focused attention 
on White House support for the prescription drug bill and tax policies 
that favor U.S. industries that move their operations overseas. 

If Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is elected president, Biden said to 
loud applause, the tax breaks will go to companies that remain in 
America instead of those that go overseas. 

The prescription drug bill, he said, "is a sham" and illegal because it 
forbids Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. 

Biden took exception to Bush's recent statements that lower-priced 
prescription drugs from Canada - which are made by the same companies 
that make and sell them in the United States - may not be safe. 

"He said that and yet he then told a Canadian company to manufacture our 
flu vaccine," Biden said. 

In a separate interview, Biden said he won't call for a suspension of 
the U.S. military's controversial anthrax vaccination program. 

Recent stories in The News Journal have called attention to the plight 
of soldiers who received anthrax vaccines containing a booster called 
squalene. The booster is blamed for adverse reactions in troops who 
received the shots at Dover Air Force Base. 

Biden reiterated a statement he issued last week with Sen. Tom Carper, D-
Del., and Castle in which they said no evidence has yet surfaced that 
current batches of the vaccine contain squalene. He believes the 
military must continue vaccinating troops against the threat of anthrax 
attacks as long as the shots are safe.

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