Good 'ole Joe....

I have recently been enjoying reading Vice President-Elect Joe Biden's biography Promises to Keep. I am very impressed with Joe's humbleness and his general philosophies of politics and governing. His story is very enjoyable and bittersweet. He's had quite a life! In reading the book, I am not only learning about Biden's life, but also about the politics of the 80s and 90s...a time when I was quite naive about what was going on in our world.

One story that particularly caught my attention is a story he related about traveling to Yugoslavia and took a meeting with its communist leader Josip Broz Tito. Biden was traveling with Averell Harriman, who helped develop the Marhsal Plan, was an ambassador to the Soviet Union for FDR, and worked along side Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin to reconstruct Europe post WWII. Needless to say, this was a man of great experience and knowledge. When discussing whether or not to meet with Tito, who was labeled as an "avowed enemy" of the U.S., Biden was given this advice "Don't trust...but engage. Be tough, but engage. By keeping up relations with leaders like Tito, we could nudge them towards change" (Promises to Keep, p. 249).

This story struck me beause of the timeliness and relevancy towards the current situation that the United States is in. Obama was ridiculed for wanting to engage in enemy leaders, such as Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il. However, if a person such as Harriman, who was front and center during one of the most pivitol times of the Western world, encourages us to continue to engage our enemies, this seems like advise that would be smart to take. People are already being critical of Obama and his administration, yet we should wait and see what kind of leader he is. And by choosing to engage with our enemies, he seems that he is already on a good path....