Biden Bush
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Biden Bush The amazing pirouette of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after launching what his aides touted as an assault on President Bush...
...Biden (who left the hearing briefly to take a call from Secretary of State Colin Powell) raised questions as expected about Negroponte's tenure as ambassador to Honduras during the 1980s...
...Outside the Capitol shortly after the Negroponte hearings on Thursday, Biden was full of praise for Bush...
...ambassador, the following day...
...Robert Brady, Biden assured Bush of his continued backing...
...There is a coalescing of liberals, conservatives, moderates, everyone...
...The aide pointed to Biden's caviling over language in the resolution authorizing Bush to use force...
...The president, God love him, has an overwhelmingly difficult job right now," Biden said...
...Although late speculation was that both nominees would eventually be confirmed, the hearings were expected to be rough, with Biden throwing many of the sharpest elbows...
...He thanked me for my words of support," says Biden...
...Negroponte got his hearing Thursday...
...The real threat comes to this country in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane, or smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack," Biden argued...
...The committee vote was 14-3—with Democrats Paul Wellstone, Barbara Boxer, and Russ Feingold in opposition...
...Negroponte, a career foreign service officer who is Bush's nominee to serve as U.N...
...shortly before he was scheduled to speak at the National Press Club last Monday, Biden's staff eagerly distributed an article from that morning's Los Angeles Times...
...The day before the attack, Bush's relationship with senate Democrats generally, and Joe Biden specifically, could not have been more strained...
...But others say Biden has, on the whole, been helpful...
...And I think the administration is doing a hell of a job...
...To hurt the United States, he asked rhetorically, are you more likely to fire a missile, or "put somebody with a backpack crossing the border from Vancouver down to Seattle, or coming up New York Harbor with a rusty old ship with an atom bomb sitting in the hull...
...senate Democrats would "challenge the Bush administration's vision of threats to the United States in the post-Cold War world," because they saw "a politStephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...And Biden's Foreign Relations Committee was set to grill John The day before the attack, Bush's relations with Senate Democrats could not have been more strained...
...The Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Biden is a senior member, was to hold a hearing Tuesday on Bush's drug czar nominee, John Walters...
...According to the paper, Biden was going to lead an "assault" by his party on President Bush's foreign policy, a "policy offensive" focused on Bush's proposal for missile defense funding...
...Full Senate confirmation is expected within days...
...As members of Congress scattered following last Tuesday's attack—some to their homes, some to Capitol Hill bars, some to protected locations— Bush phoned the Democratic chairman of the senate Foreign Relations Committee from Air Force one to express his gratitude...
...Whatever I can do, I'll do...
...To use a grim adaptation of the old cliche: What a difference a day makes...
...We should be acting together on this, and he's nitpicking on language," complained the aide...
...It's not just Biden," says a GOP leadership aide...
...ical vulnerability on foreign policy...
...Oddly enough, it looks as though Biden will see his ambitions better served as Bush's best Democratic friend in the Senate, than as his chief adversary...
...He hasn't been as bad as some others, like Senator Dodd, but he could be doing more," says a top Republican aide working on these issues...
...But it's not likely to have a place in any future Biden press kit...
...The Press Club speech—and a preview of it on Meet the Press the day before—was to have been just one element in a sort of coming out week for Biden...
...Missile defense opponents maintain that the speech was prophetic...
...On his way home to Delaware with Pennsylvania Rep...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after launching what his aides touted as an assault on President Bush and his foreign and defense policies, senator Joseph Biden found himself accepting the president's thanks...
...The president's missile defense policy was deemed "nonsense," his advisers "relics of the Cold War...
...On top of unrelenting criticism on the budget—now, practically meaningless—Democrats were preparing a fresh attack...
...Though Walters's hearing was postponed, Biden pledged to expedite hearings of top foreign policy advisers the White House designated as crucial to responding to last week's attacks...
...Some Republicans argue that while Biden has publicly backed Bush, he hasn't been as cooperative behind the scenes...
...Biden's speech was beyond blunt...
...Often mentioned as a potential 2004 challenger to Bush—speculation he has not discouraged—Biden was all set to play an important adversarial role in two high-profile confirmation hearings...
...But he also pointed to Negroponte's "distinguished record of service to the nation" and voted in favor of confirmation...
...It's everyone...
Vol. 7 • September 2001 • No. 2
