Joe Biden’s son is scheduled to deploy to Iraq. And his dad isn’t trying to score political points on it.
Capt. Beau Biden, a Judge Advocate General in the Delaware National Guard and the state’s attorney general, is part of the 261st Signal Brigade that has been told to prepare for duty in Iraq in 2008. They have not been given a date of deployment yet.
“I don’t want him going,” Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said from the campaign trail Wednesday, according to a report on Radio Iowa. “But I tell you what, I don’t want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years and so how we leave makes a big difference.”
Biden criticized Democratic rivals such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama who have voted against Iraq funding bills to try to pressure President Bush to end the war.
“There’s no political point worth my son’s life,” Biden said, according to Radio Iowa. “There’s no political point worth anybody’s life out there. None.”
Like Jim Geraghty, I wish young CPT Biden a safe return and, like his dad, I hope his risk will be worth it.
There’s a reason Joe Biden is, along with Bill Richardson, a Democratic candidate that Republicans privately say they wouldn’t mind seeing elected president despite being fairly liberal on domestic policy. Yes, he’s arrogant and yes, he often shoots from the hip and says silly things (the Indians at 7-11 and Obama clean and articulate comments being the most recent gems). But he’s a serious, genuine guy whose heart is in the right place.
He also, apparently, has a hell of a sense of humor, saddling his son with a rhyming variant of his own first name.
