Biden: Bush 'brain dead' on drug bill

Biden: Bush 'brain dead' on drug bill
Del. GOP says senator's remark went too far
By MIKE BILLINGTON / The News Journal
10/20/2004
Sen. Joe Biden rallied supporters for John Kerry's presidential campaign Tuesday with a blistering attack on Bush administration policies that he said hurt retirees and working-class Americans.
Biden criticized the administration's prescription drug policies and their impact on consumers. "He is brain dead," Biden said of the president. His comment was greeted with loud applause at the UAW Local 435 union hall in Cranston Heights but quickly drew the ire of Delaware Republicans.
"Sen. Biden should be ashamed of his below-the-belt rhetoric and personal attacks on the president," said David Crossan, executive director of the state's Republican Party. "Challenging policies is one thing, but calling someone 'brain dead' crosses the line."
Many of the union members and retirees who attended the rally didn't think Biden's comments were out of line.
They said in the past they often crossed party lines to support the late U.S. Sen. Bill Roth, a conservative Republican who spent more than three decades in the Senate, and continue to vote for U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate Republican. However, they would have a hard time supporting Bush, they said, because of his administration's policies.
"The senator wasn't talking the political talk, he was pretty straightforward. That's what we wanted and that's what we got, straight talk," said Bill Wasik, Local 435's vice president. "Basically, the senator said that the Bush administration isn't listening to the working men and women, and that's true."
Local 435 recording secretary Nancy Smith said that while Biden's speech was "very emotional" she did not think his comments were off base.
"He spoke from his heart about what's at stake for all labor and all working-class people in America," she said. "He talked about issues that definitely affect us. These are serious issues for us, and he talked about what could happen if we don't make a change."
Biden touched on a wide range of issues during a speech in which he walked among audience members, stopping to shake hands with people whose names he wove into anecdotes.
Wasik and other members of the audience said they are concerned about the war in Iraq. They worry because it seems the White House has no clear strategy for getting U.S. troops out of there.
"It's a quagmire," Wasik said. "We support our troops, of course, but we know now that the war in Iraq didn't turn out to be what they said it was going to be about. I think that the war should be in Afghanistan. That's where the terrorists are, not in Iraq."
Biden discussed the war during his speech and later told reporters the United States and its allies must send large numbers of soldiers to Iraq to guarantee free elections
in 2005, just as they did in Afghanistan this year. The Bush administration may not have the political will nor the international credibility to ensure that happens, he said.
Biden's attack on the Bush administration's policies focused attention on White House support for the prescription drug bill and tax policies that favor U.S. industries that move their operations overseas.
If Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is elected president, Biden said to loud applause, the tax breaks will go to companies that remain in America instead of those that go overseas.
The prescription drug bill, he said, "is a sham" and illegal because it forbids Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Biden took exception to Bush's recent statements that lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada - which are made by the same companies that make and sell them in the United States - may not be safe.
"He said that and yet he then told a Canadian company to manufacture our flu vaccine," Biden said.
In a separate interview, Biden said he won't call for a suspension of the U.S. military's controversial anthrax vaccination program.
Recent stories in The News Journal have called attention to the plight of soldiers who received anthrax vaccines containing a booster called squalene. The booster is blamed for adverse reactions in troops who received the shots at Dover Air Force Base.
Biden reiterated a statement he issued last week with Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Castle in which they said no evidence has yet surfaced that current batches of the vaccine contain squalene. He believes the military must continue vaccinating troops against the threat of anthrax attacks as long as the shots are safe.
Contact Mike Billington at 324-2761 or mbillington@delawareonline.com.
The News Journal/FRED COMEGYS
At Tuesday's union rally, Sen. Joe Biden (left) attacked President Bush's policies on Iraq, taxes and prescription drugs. Many in the Cranston Heights hall welcomed Biden's comments.



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