Dear Joe Biden...America's Calling

Joe—it’s time for you to step up. To find out what you are made of; to see if your name belongs in history as an American man of character and substance.

We’d guess that in the privacy of your own thinking, you know it’s more than a little preposterous that you sit in the office of the Vice President of the United States. Compared to the great business and military and political leaders of history, you know you don’t measure up very well—kind of a lightweight schmoozer-politician in a small, blue collar Democrat state who won an election or two and then rode the presumptive authority and competence of incumbency into a lifetime in politics. But when you’re honest with yourself, we doubt ‘great leader’ or great thinker are labels that you would assign to yourself.

All of that sounds like a putdown—and it’s surely not a glowing tribute—but it’s a backdrop for asking whether you’re ready, willing and able to step to a new level in history’s estimation. Because the call has arrived for you, and you’re going to have to find out if you’re man enough to answer it.

The call is to be a leader of adult politicians of both parties who bind themselves together to fulfill one mission: to go to Barack Obama and tell him it’s time to resign the Presidency.

You knew a few years ago that the Presidency is not a place for on-the-job training; you’ve also known for awhile that an American President who takes the nation into a war with no immediate national interest and without Congressional approval should be impeached.

You’ve served your time in the traditional VP job of loyal bulldog. You’ve taken a few arrows for Obama, and deserve praise from Democrats for doing so, because you did so under circumstances where we frankly doubt that you’re anywhere close to the Obama inner circle that made the decisions you had to defend.

But you and millions of traditional Democrats now know that there is something seriously wrong with this guy. There is something truly heinous and indefensible in his conduct of foreign policy and economic policy; his agenda is not reconcilable with mainstream Democrats.

He is endangering America and all Americans—and you know it. This isn’t politics as usual; and the concerns about Obama have nothing to do with race. You also know a little bit about unions—and you know very well that the antics of Obama and SEIU and the whole Madison scene are not what lunch pail union members are all about.

We know there’s no guarantee that Obama would agree to resign. We know there’s a piece of the race industry that would try to make hay out of the act of asking for Obama’s resignation. So you’ll have plenty of excuses to not go forward with such a meeting. But you do have a conscience; you do have a soul; and if you take off your politician’s hat and just wear the hat of a man and an American—your conscience and your soul are screaming at you to take action. And you know it.

Stepping forward to lead a public call for Obama to step aside would be an act of character and courage that will make the name Joe Biden mean something positive for all of history. Whether or not Obama complied, Joe Biden would be an American patriot who placed his country above his party. That’s an American hero.

The opportunity is right in front of you, and it is ripe for action. What are you going to do?

Paul Gable

March 25, 2011