Barack Obama Introduces Running Mate, Joe Biden | Voice of America - English
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced Senator Joe Biden as his running mate Saturday.  They spoke at a rally in Springfield, Illinois, two days before the Democratic National Convention.  VOA's Kent Klein reports from Washington.     Barack Obama went before a cheering crowd of thousands in his home state and praised his vice presidential candidate as a "leader who is ready to step in and be President." "Joe Biden is what so many others pretend to be: a statesman with sound judgment, who does not have to hide behind bluster to keep America strong."  Obama, at age 47, is a relative
"He looked [former Yugoslav leader] Slobodan Milosevic in the eye and called him a war criminal, and then helped shaped policies that would end the killing in the Balkans and bring Milosevic to justice. Joe Biden passed laws to lock down chemical weapons, and led the push to bring Europe's newest democracies into NATO. Over the last eight years he has been a powerful critic of the catastrophic Bush-McCain foreign policy," he said. "That's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He will have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at," he said. "I'm here for the cops [police officers] and the firefighters, the teachers and the line workers, the folks whose lives are the measure of whether the American Dream endures. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no ordinary time. This is no ordinary election," he said. "These times call for a total change in Washington's world view. These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader," he said.