Joe Biden entered the Senate in 1973 opposing the Vietnam War on strategic, not moral, grounds. He was one of the co-sponsors of the War Powers Act and was a founding member of the Senate Intelligence Committee empowered to oversee the CIA. But when President Jimmy Carter nominated an outsider to run the CIA, Biden sided with the security state over his principles.
Joe Biden didn’t offer any moral objections to the Vietnam War and thought protesters were “assholes,” but he said the war was a “tragic mistake” based on “lousy policy.”
From the early stages of his Senate career, Joe Biden insisted that presidents cannot wage wars without congressional authorization.
Joe Biden fought to rein in the CIA following the abuses of the Nixon era, but he also wanted the U.S. to have sweeping surveillance powers.
Joe Biden claimed to support President Jimmy Carter’s “outsider” nominee for CIA director — before he helped tank his candidacy with a spurious claim of espionage.