Senator Biden Says He Intends to Run

When your poll numbers are down in the single digits and your name is Senator Biden, a good move is to keep semi-announcing your intention to run for president in incremental steps. One can produce a few headlines that way. Here's ABC News with the story:

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, one of the Democratic party's leading voices on foreign policy and a sharp critic of President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war, on Tuesday said he intends to run for president in 2008.

"It is my intention to seek the nomination, and it's my intention sometime in the month of January to set up the appropriate mechanism to be able to raise money for that purpose," Biden said in a telephone news conference that centered on Iraq.

Now I'm poking a little fun at Joe Biden but there aren't many elected officials in Washington more knowledgeable about foreign policy than the senator. He knows what he's talking about which is in sharp contrast to the man in the Oval Office.

From CBS News, here's more that Senator Biden has to say; it looks like he's not going to put up with Bush's political games:

Incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, said Tuesday he would oppose any effort by President Bush to increase U.S troops in Iraq as part of a new war strategy.

(snip)

Biden also said he believes Democrats' political vulnerability on Iraq is limited.

"I think we'll only have to accept responsibility for the war if we remain silent," he said.

Biden said he delivered this message in a recent meeting at the White House, where he told Bush: "Mr. President, this is your war."

President Bush, after three years of floundering, and weeks after the voters sent a decisive message, is still dithering about what he's going to do. Democrats do not have the authority to run our foreign policy but they have the obligation to speak out on Bush's incompetence and to hold his administration accountable for a long series of failures. I hope Biden keeps it up.