Biden

MASON CITY, Iowa -- Listen to any politician for long, and you can expect to catch him in a fib. But at a stop in Algona, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. opened with a whopper that no voter familiar with the Delaware Democrat would ever believe. "I'll be brief," he promised - and then talked for half an hour. Mr. Biden has often been ridiculed for needless verbosity. Critics lamented that during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., he needed 13 minutes to ask one question.

Chris CombsOld MillWrestlingCombs outscored four 119-pound opponents, 33-4, in leading Old Mill to the Class 3A-4A State Duals Championship. The junior defeated Bobby Biden (Westminster), a three-time county and regional champion, 9-2, in the finals.

Matt Yinger and Bobby Biden will be seeking a continuation of family traditions, and Westminster will shoot for a title defense at regional wrestling championships today and tomorrow.Yinger, Carroll County's only season-long unbeaten entrant, will lead defending team champion Francis Scott Key in the Class 1A-2A West at North Hagerstown. Biden will be one of six county champions counted on to help Westminster retain its Class 3A-4A crown at Fallston.Yinger (21-0 at 135 as a senior) won at 112 pounds as a freshman and at 130 as a junior, and will be looking to use the regional as a springboard to next week's state meet at Western Maryland College.

Right now, Bobby Biden, a four-year standout for Westminster's wrestling team, is focused on Josh Wampler, tonight's expected opponent at 119 pounds when visiting Liberty provides the opposition.His long-range goal figures to be a little more demanding -- a sweep of county, regional and state titles.Certainly there is experience on his side. In the previous three seasons, he swept county and regional titles, but there is a hole in that resume he would like to fill. In three trips to the state tournament, his best finish was a third last year.

Bobby Biden set a Westminster standard by winning his fourth individual county title, joining an elite group of wrestlers; Mike Muller edged defending state champion Dave Spicer in their first meeting; and Westminster ran off with its third successive team title at the 29th Carroll County wrestling championships at Westminster yesterday.Although it is a peak that has been achieved six times in the past by county wrestlers, Biden became the first Westminster wrestler in all of the school's storied history to win four titles in a row.Biden (119)

DAMASCUS -- Boys' Latin's Jason Leneau earned the Outstanding Wrestler Award and improved to 18-0 with a 53-second title bout pin of Oakland Mills' Quinton Milroe for the 171-pound championship at yesterday's 19-team Damascus Invitational. No. 6 Westminster won the team title, 201-162, over the host Hornets.Westminster titlists included Bobby Biden (119 pounds, 13-1 record), Kyle Burger (130, 12-1) and state champ Dave Spicer (140, 13-1). Tim Sharkey (135) placed second and Jim Reiter (125)

The timing was not right for the Westminster wrestling team last night.Just three days after losing an emotional match to South Carroll, the Owls ran into a strong Frederick squad and the outcome was not very pretty.The Cadets, 3-0 and winners of the Garry Trott tournament last weekend at Fallston, defeated Westminster, 42-15, in Westminster."My wrestlers didn't know Frederick was that good and I as a coach didn't know they were that good," said Westminster coach Henry Mohlhenrich. "But now we know why they beat North Carroll [33-24]

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's embattled choice for surgeon general fought back against his critics yesterday, even as support for him seemed to be eroding in the Senate and a new revelation came to light.The Clinton administration acknowledged that Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr. performed a small number of hysterectomies to sterilize severely mentally retarded women two decades ago, the Associated Press reported late last night.A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Dr. Foster performed the sterilizations at a time when the medical community believed such procedures were justified as providing health benefits to the women.

Want to know just how good a wrestler Westminster freshman Bobby Biden is?"If we had 12 more like him, we would be unbeatable," said Owls coach Henry Mohlhenrich.Quite a testimony to an athlete who has been in only 15 bouts in his varsity career.But Biden has earned that kind of high praise from his coach, winning 14 of 15 matches at 103 pounds and dominating his teammates in practice."Bobby came in here and beat everybody, including the juniors and seniors," said Mohlhenrich. "Intensity and tenacity are his strong points.

Washington -- THE WHITE HOUSE scene resembled a "Who's Who" of the American past. Or a wax museum tableaux.East Room chandeliers glinted on graying, balding heads of once-powerful honchos from every administration back to Ike, LBJ and JFK.They'd seen it all over four decades -- the wars, racial tumult, political shocks. Now they were watching embattled Bill Clinton begin the fight to hold onto his presidency.Worse, if you believe the whispers, they saw Mr. Clinton struggling to hang onto his party's nomination against Democratic rebels who fear he'll lead them to a 1996 disaster.

Six months ago, embarking on the vice presidency, Joe Biden listed among his top priorities "restoring" the office to its proper constitutional role in the wake of the eight-year tenure of predecessor Dick Cheney. It's early to attempt a reliable assessment of his achievement of that goal. But at the half-year mark, he has from all appearances made a good start, if only because nobody is suggesting, as often was the case with Mr. Cheney, that Mr. Biden is really running the country. Nor has there has been talk of the vice president stealthily at work from an "undisclosed location," whispering conspiratorially into the ear of the president.

Former Biden aide chosen for Senate seat WILMINGTON, Del. : Edward Kaufman, a former aide to Sen. Joe Biden, was named yesterday by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to fill the Senate seat Biden is leaving for the vice presidency. Kaufman is president of a political and management consulting firm based in Wilmington. He served on Biden's Senate staff 1973-1994, including 19 years as chief of staff. He is an advisory board member to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Speculation on Biden's successor had centered in recent weeks on his son, Attorney General Beau Biden.

Just a day after he was announced as Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden was back in Delaware, taking his usual seat in the pews of St. Joseph on the Brandywine in the small community of Greenville. That he would participate in a Roman Catholic Mass so soon after being added to the Democratic ticket was of little surprise. Biden once vowed that "the next Republican that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary down their throat." Similar passions lie behind the efforts of the Obama campaign and Democratic strategists this year to win over Catholic voters, considered by many to be a crucial constituency that could determine the next president.

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the vice-presidential debate, a new poll shows that most Americans regard Sarah Palin as unqualified to take over as president should it become necessary. The finding is a sharp reversal from earlier polling that showed she was considered qualified, and points to the heightened stakes for Palin in her faceoff with Delaware Sen. Joe Biden this evening. "If Palin does well, her performance will go a long way to rehabilitating her image," said John J. Pitney Jr., a Claremont McKenna College political scientist.

The National Guard should have a seat at the table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sen. Joe Biden told a convention of National Guard members at the Baltimore Convention Center yesterday. With a presidential debate on foreign policy set for Friday, the Democratic nominee for vice president focused his remarks to Guard members on national security, military resources and veterans benefits. But speaking to the group a day after Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, addressed them, Biden threw in some barbs for his opponents, as well.

True-blue Maryland is about to see something unexpected this close to Election Day: someone actually on a presidential ballot. Two of them. John McCain and Joe Biden will be in town at the Baltimore Convention Center to address the annual conference of the National Guard Association of the U.S. McCain is to speak Sunday at 3:30 p.m. Biden appears Monday at 11:30 a.m. Usually a sure bet for Dems and a lost cause for the GOP, Maryland isn't on any presidential...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - As a falling stock market stoked fears that the nation's financial system was spinning out of control, the presidential candidates sought yesterday to shape the economic debate. Democrat Barack Obama accused John McCain of being out of touch after the Arizona Republican said the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remained strong. Their running mates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, joined a debate that became more acrimonious as financial losses increased throughout the day. "People are frightened by these events," McCain told thousands of supporters at a campaign stop in Jacksonville, Fla. "The fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very, difficult" times.

The Democratic National Convention, set to begin in Denver this evening, could offer voters a chance to see past the scripting and assess the personal chemistry of the party's new presidential campaign team.. The blue collar roots, foreign policy expertise and congressional experience of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. promises to complement Sen. Barack Obama's crowd pleasing agenda for change. Whether the two will offer a compelling partnership remains to be seen. Conventional wisdom has it that the choice of a vice presidential candidate is a piece of meaningless political stagecraft.

GREENVILLE, Del. - Two or three times a week, a jovial, silvery-haired man walks into the Brew HaHa! cafe and orders a medium or large coffee, sometimes leaving room for cream, sometimes not. "Good morning, sweetie!" he often says to Jessica Oliver behind the counter. "How are you?" "Hi, Joe!" she replies. "How's everything?" Then Sen. Joe Biden heads to the train station in nearby Wilmington and rides south to Washington, a daily commute he's made since being elected to the Senate 36 years ago. Those early-morning coffee orders, fondly recalled yesterday by Oliver, have been put on ice - at least until November.

The governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, was led around like a prize bull by Hillary Clinton's aides at a big Democratic gala in Des Moines, Iowa, last weekend. He was on display so that Clinton could give him a shout-out from the stage. With his support, she told the crowd of 9,000 party activists, she would carry the big swing state of Ohio in the general election (unlike John Kerry last time) and, as a result, win the presidency. Strickland, who is highly popular with his state's voters, had endorsed Clinton the day before, renewing speculation about his own future.