Biden: The good, the bad and the ugly

As everyone not living in a cave in outer Mongolia by now knows, Barack Obama picked Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate. Some initial thoughts on that choice, both politically and intellectually…

On a political level, Biden was a safe choice. He balances the ticket in several ways, adding a great deal of experience to the ticket along with serious foreign policy chops. Equally important for a court watcher like me, he adds another strong voice on judicial issues. Biden used to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee and presided over the most contentious confirmation hearings in history in Bork and Thomas.

Expect lots and lots of video replay of Biden’s comments about the presidency not being a place for on the job training. In fact, the McCain campaign had an ad already in the can in anticipation and released it within hours of the announcement that Biden was the pick. But I don’t expect this to be a big problem. The rhetorical answer is obvious:

“I did say that and at the time I meant it, but having now spent a great deal of time with Obama I am convinced that he’s ready for the job ahead. He’s a quick study and he has immersed himself in the details of foreign policy. He’s already shown far better judgment on these issues than John McCain has shown.”

A bigger potential problem is Biden’s tendency to say stupid things when he’s speaking off the cuff. He’s clearly a very intelligent man and he’s also a good speaker, but he strikes me as a guy with a devious sense of humor and a lack of judgment on what he should and shouldn’t say. When he starts riffing with the press he tends to talk too much and say things he shouldn’t be saying in public. If he throws out one of those in the next couple months, that could be a problem.

On an intellectual or ideological level, I’ve got some real problems with Biden. He’s fairly strong on some issues I feel strongly about, like separation of church and state and, equally important, maximizing religious freedom (he was a co-sponsor of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act). But on other issues, especially civil liberties issues, he’s been absolutely horrible.

For example, last year Biden signed a pledge to support “universal national service,” an idea that is a clear violation of the 13th amendment ban on involuntary servitude. Voluntary national service in exchange for federally guaranteed student loans? No problem. Involuntary, mandatory, universal national service? Sorry, there’s this pesky thing called the Constitution that forbids it.
Biden also voted for the Patriot Act and for its reauthorization.

Perhaps most disturbing to me is that Biden is an unrepentant drug warrior. It was Biden who coined the phrase “drug czar” and pushed for drug prohibition to be a larger priority for the federal government. To that end he has sponsored one bit of disastrous legislation after another, from the use of RICO laws to prosecute drug dealers to the use of development aid to the Third World for drug war efforts to the civil asset forfeiture laws.

That last one deserves a comment all on its own. Our drug asset forfeiture laws are nothing short of insane. Law enforcement can seize assets, including cash, that they suspect may have something to do with drugs and the burden of proof is on the person it was seized from to prove that it wasn’t. That stands the 4th amendment and presumption of innocence clearly on its head. In cases all over the country, including many here in Michigan over the years, cash or property has been seized under such laws even when the person was never even charged, much less convicted, of any drug crime. It’s difficult to imagine anything more flagrantly unjust than that, but Biden is an enthusiastic advocate of such laws (he even wrote an entire book about it in 1981).

Biden was also the author of the RAVE Act, which was attached to the bill that established Amber Alerts (and therefore no one could afford to vote against it politically because they’d be painted as not being sufficiently opposed to child abuse). That draconian law allows for penalties of up to $250,000 for the owners of a venue or organizers of an event if someone at the event was caught smoking a joint. It’s been used repeatedly by the DEA to squash fundraisers for drug reform organizations.

The record isn’t entirely bad on these issues. Biden has spoken out lately against the disparity in sentencing between powder and crack cocaine, which is a good thing. He’s also spoken out against federal raids on medical marijuana clinics, though he still opposes legalizing marijuana even for medicinal usage. And he’s been a strong proponent of habeas corpus rights and opponent of the use of torture. But there’s enough bad in there, especially those vile asset forfeiture laws he advocates, that are a constitutional nightmare, to make me queasy.