Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden : on Homeland Security

Missile defense is perfect metaphor for neo-isolationism

The administration had said they were willing to walk away from the decades-old ABM Treaty in order to unilaterally develop and deploy the missile defense system, and now they were putting real money behind it. They were willing to put tens of billions of dollars into the Maginot line in the sky that could quite likely set off another arms race, while cutting funding for a program to help Russia destroy its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons before they got into the hands of terrorists.

Urged Pres. Bush to return to Washington on 9/11

When I asked him when he was heading to Washington, he said the intelligence community told him he shouldn't. I recalled a story about the leader of the French resistance, Charles de Gaulle, near the close of World War II. When France was liberated, there was a parade down the Champs-Elysees in Paris, led by de Gaulle. As they walked, shots rang out, and everyone hit the ground except de Gaulle. He continued to walk ramrod straight. With that one defiant action he lifted France off its knees.

"Mr. President, come back to Washington," I said. [Pres. Bush famously did].