“Biden’s selection as vice presidential candidate has nothing to do with ‘change’ or ‘hope’: this is the status quo of chaos, destruction and widespread death, with a vengeance. I want to focus for a moment on a critical point offered by Zunes: that Biden called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq as far back as 1998. Biden was not alone in this call for war; many Republicans — and not a few Democrats — had similar views. You should keep this in mind in connection with a favorite defense offered by Democratic partisans of a certain kind; that if Gore had become president in 2000, the invasion of Iraq never would have happened, the genocide would not have occurred, and the destabilization of the Middle East would have been avoided (from a much longer list of baleful consequences). This is an entirely invalid argument.” (08/26/08)