Written by John Escher   

Standing ten feet away on the grass at Wake Forest University, I listened to Joe Biden deliver a speech that I thought was one of the best examples of public speaking I ever heard because it was so inspirational and positive.

On the other hand, just as Barack Obama failed to put sufficient distance between himself and George W. Bush, Joe's failure to break with Barack on Afghanistan and Iraq made him into an American exceptionalist like his soulmate Paul Ryan.

The reason that Joe and Paul are soulmates is that both prefer to talk about their families than American history. And they think that our fighting force is the greatest in the history of Earth. Why would that be? A higher rape rate?

It was Richard Holbrooke on his deathbed, not Joe Biden who wanted to get us out of The Graveyard of Empires. In any case, neither Joe, Barack, Hillary or Donald read enough Thucydides when they were in college.

When we consider recent presidents, not even Jimmy Carter was a pacifist although he may have become one after he left office.

We need someone with enough idealism and humanity to change us from an international war machine with tentacles and drones all over the place into an environmentally hip nation focused on its own infrastructure and health.