Biden, drug warrior

I was very, very impressed with Joe Biden's performance last week. He was direct, he stayed (mostly) on message, and he calmly refuted the lies and misinformation coming from Sarah Palin's side (you almost can't blame her for the falsehoods, she's just repeating what she's been told). For Palin's part, her main success last week was ducking question after question to stay in her safe zones, talking vaguely about tax cuts and job creation and talking specifically about drilling, baby, drilling.

But I can't watch Biden without thinking about his role as one of the Senate's most rabid drug warriors. He is responsible for creating the drug czar (and the Office of National Drug Control Policy). He authored the RAVE act, which extends drug punishments to owners of bars and clubs where drug busts happen. After nearly three decades in the Senate, and despite smart positions on plenty of other issues, Biden refuses to admit that the drug war doesn't work.

As Radley Balko points out in an insightful article on Slate today, Obama has hinted at reasonable rollbacks in the War on Drugs in the past, but there's been some serious backsliding during this campaign.

In particular, Biden and Obama have promised to beef up two federal grant programs critics say have exacerbated many of the very problems Obama expressed concern about earlier in the primaries. Obama and Biden's position shows an unwillingness to think critically about criminal justice. They are opting instead for the reflexive belief that more federal involvement is always preferable to less.

Let's hope Obama is talking a little bit of "tough on crime" to get elected, and he's no drug warrior like Biden.