Not a new face for change in direction

For a person who has persistently campaigned on a "time for change" mandate and little else, it must have come as a surprise for supporters of the Democratic Party that Barack Obama settled for Joe Biden as his running mate in the race for the White House. Biden, who has been around the corridors of power for nearly four decades, certainly cannot be described as a new face, or a change in direction of the policies of the Democratic Party. The choice of Biden is widely seen as being someone who can bridge the gap in Obama's experience in Washington politics and, more especially, foreign policy.

During the campaigns for presidential nominee by their respective parties, Senator John McCain has constantly brought up the issue of Obama's lack of knowledge of matters foreign, a barb which obviously got home as it necessitated Obama making a sudden and unexpected trip to Iraq, Israel and Europe. Only time will tell whether the short visits to each country enabled him to be sufficiently briefed on the issues at hand. But now it seems he will not have to rely on his memory and scores of aids alone, for he will have Biden by his side.

But Biden is a difficult person to pin down when it comes to foreign policy. It is said that he likes to carefully examine a problem before coming forward with his own solutions, which may or may not excite the imaginations of other Democrats, or even those more closely involved with the issue. His "solution" for Iraq, for example, to divide the country into three - Kurd, Sunni and Shiite - was less than warmly received by Arabs. Biden is also known to enjoy a verbal scrap with his political opponents, preferring the sound of his voice more than the logic of his argument.