The Spider and the Fly

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"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly,
‘"Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve many curious things to shew when you are there."
"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again."
Mary Howitt, 1821

Although Governor Sarah Palin bears not the slightest resemblance to a deadly spider, and Senator Joseph Biden resembles a pesky fly only in that they share a certain nuisance value, the political "drama" that Biden and his Democratic allies have forced Palin into puts one in mind of the Mary Howitt poem. In other words, "they’ve got Sarah Palin right where she wants them."
Since the moment that John McCain introduced Palin as his running mate, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and every other prominent Democrat in America have worked overtime trying to figure out how to handle this beautiful, charming, successful, and supremely competent woman.

Being Democrats, their first instinct was to smear her. So their friends in the tabloid media ran a cover story with the title, "Babies, Lies & Scandal." They were able to point to babies, born and unborn, but when they couldn’t produce any lies or scandals and the Obama-Biden brand began to suffer in the opinion polls, they looked around for a new approach.

Their second instinct was to complain that, as the mother of five, Palin couldn’t begin to manage home, family, and the vice presidency, all at once. That tactic generated howls of protest from women across the country who’ve always believed that they should be free to pursue marriage, motherhood, and a career, if that’s what they wanted. Who were these Democrats to suggest that a woman of Sarah Palin’s caliber would find life unmanageable in the fastest of fast lanes?

Failing that, it appears they have now settled on an attempt to paint her as incompetent to serve because of a lack of foreign policy experience. But therein lies the greatest of all traps. As Democrats attempt to make the case that Palin lacks foreign policy experience, as compared to Senator Biden’s years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they run the risk of exposing Biden’s less than stellar record in foreign affairs. For example:

During the 1970s, Biden opposed giving aid to the South Vietnamese when they were under attack by North Vietnamese communists. Biden supported efforts to cut off aid to the South Vietnamese, a move which made it impossible for them to defend themselves against communist aggression, contributed to the advance of communism in Southeast Asia, and led to the mass murder of millions of men, women, and children across the region.

During the early 1980s, as Ronald Reagan fought to prevent the establishment of communist regimes in Central America, most notably in Nicaragua and El Salvador, Biden, along with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) led the fight against funding the Contra freedom fighters… even to the extent of withholding food and medical supplies from guerilla forces fighting in the jungles of Nicaragua. Biden also opposed Reagan Administration efforts to send military assistance to the pro-American government in El Salvador, which was under attack by the FMLN, a Soviet-backed group of Marxist guerillas.
Biden has consistently opposed modernization of our strategic nuclear forces. He was a fierce opponent of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the missile defense system that ultimately bankrupted the Soviet Union and brought an end to the Cold War. Biden opposed SDI funding, saying, "The president’s continued adherence to (SDI) constitutes one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft."

In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, an American ally. President George H.W. Bush sought authorization from Congress to enforce the U.N. mandate to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Senator Biden voted against the authorization, asking, "What vital interests of the United States justify sending Americans to their deaths in the sands of Saudi Arabia?"
In 2006, when Democrats expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of political reconciliation in Iraq, Biden sponsored a resolution calling on the United States to impose an ethnic subdivision of the country, dividing Iraq into Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish regions and requiring Iraqis to relocate based on their ethnic identification.

In 2007, Biden opposed President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, calling it a "tragic mistake." The exact opposite has proven to be true. Under the leadership of General David Petraeus, the surge has greatly reduced the level of violence in Iraq, making it possible for the Bush Administration to begin scheduling the withdrawal of American troops.

According to the Wall Street Journal, "On many of the most important and controversial issues of the last four decades, Mr. Biden has built a record based on bad assumptions, misguided analyses and flawed judgments."
As Sarah Palin is confronted with the charge that she has too little foreign policy experience to serve as vice president she might simply reply, "Yes, it is true. I do not have the advantage of Senator Biden’s long experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but I fail to see what value that experience has been for Senator Biden… given his long record of wrong and misguided decisions."

Walk into my parlor, said the Spider to the Fly.