Walter Patterson Herald ColumnistIf you watched the Vice-Presidential debate last week, you saw clearly why we need a change in Washington.
“Clueless Joe Biden” played fast and loose with the facts, and we saw a vice-president as phony as his implant hair and sparkling white dentures. The challenger, Paul Ryan, articulated a serious intellectual message to the American people that said, “We cannot continue the course we are on.  We will be bankrupt on the course the Democrats have charted.”  
“Clueless Joe” blamed Bush for the economic crisis we are in, but notice, he offered no solutions to the problems we face other than to hold on with both hands to social programs that are bankrupting our country and promise more “tax and spend” government.  He held on to his and Obama’s “tax the rich” mantra.  He declared that no part of Social Security would be privatized, and then he fudged on the part about Obamacare taking $716 billion out of Medicare.  For a man who had spent all of his adult life in the Senate, his lack of basic knowledge was appalling. What was more appalling was his lack of a moral compass.
Biden is supposed to be a foreign policy expert.  In fact, if you will take a stroll back in time, Obama selected Biden for his so-called expertise in this one area.  However, he could not explain why our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were slaughtered in Libya.  He said he was told that a film made by an American Coptic Christian had so inflamed the Arab world that they went on a spontaneous rampage and attacked our embassy.  There is just one problem.  His own people have testified in Congress that this assertion is false.  Even the mainstream press had the facts 24 hours after the killings had occurred.
No! The truth is that this film had nothing to do with the terrorist attack that killed our ambassador.  Although he smiled, rolled his eyes, and showed great disrespect to Paul Ryan, he could never come out with the truth.  I don’t know if we will ever know the truth, but Congress is on the case, and some very damning evidence has come out against the Obama administration.  More will come out eventually, but that does not excuse the Obama Administration for their total incompetence in dealing with this terrorist attack. Paul Ryan said it best.  “Obama’s and Biden’s foreign policy is unraveling right before our eyes.”
Biden claimed that Iran would never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon.  “We will know exactly when they have the materials to build a bomb and something to put the uranium into.”  Really?  They did not know that a terrorist attack was going to occur in Libya against our Consulate, yet they will know exactly when Iran gets the bomb?  Give me a break.  This is nonsense.  “Clueless Joe” was throwing mud against the wall hoping that something would stick. If Obama could not protect his own ambassador, how in the world can he protect America from a nuclear armed Iran?
I kept waiting for Paul Ryan to ask Biden about the one trillion dollar tax increase he and Mr. Obama are proposing.  Biden purports to love the middle class.  In fact, he says that he wants to “level the playing field” so that everyone has a fair chance.  These are code words for socialism.  Old Joe wants all of us to be equally miserable.  The proof of this is the current job market.  Our economy during the last quarter grew at 1.3 percent, and at this rate, it will take 25 years to get our employment rate back to where it was when George Bush was president.
This economy belongs to Obama, Biden and the Democrats.  They have had four years to fix this economy and get people back to work.  Instead, they blame George Bush, or they blame the Republicans for not passing another piece of socialist legislation that would only drive our country deeper in debt with no chance of putting people back to work.
This election is about jobs.  We know that the Obama Administration cannot produce jobs and build a strong economy.  They cannot even pass a Federal Budget, something that they have neglected to do for over three years.  Mitt Romney is a business man, a successful business man.  He understands basic economics, and he understands what it takes to get this country working again.  Paul Ryan delivered that message to our country and to a disrespectful Vice President who couldn’t create a job if his life depended on it.  The American people saw firsthand “Clueless Joe” continue to deliver a dangerous brand of Democrat incompetence, and there will be a day of reckoning soon.