Washington (AP) Following is an edited transcript of Secretary of State Designate Joe Biden’s hearing today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Moved by President Obama’s pleadings, Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton resigned their posts last week in order to switch positions and become America’s first Cabinet-level tag team.

On Monday, Clinton won Congressional approval to be the nation’s Number Two, adding a hefty bottom to the Democrats’ 2012 Presidential undercard.

CHAIRMAN JOHN KERRY:  Good morning, everyone.  The Committee is delighted to welcome former Vice President Biden, or, as he was referred to by White House pollsters, “Dead-Weight Joe.”

Once confirmed, he will oversee the steaming pile of dung that’s been our foreign policy under the capable Mrs. Clinton.  I assure you, Joe Biden can manage the load.

We all know America is a nation in decline, a nation hurtling toward the depths.  With his misplaced sense of humor, endearing ineptitude, and characteristic superciliousness, Joe is well-equipped to lead us into irrelevance.

Before we begin the questioning, I would like to offer a few thoughts about. . . .

. . . . defeating the worldwide scourge of male pattern baldness, preventing the unnecessary loss of trillions of innocent follicles. . . .

. . . . extraditing Dick Cheney to the Hague to account for his. . . .

. . . . returning Texas and California to Mexico, from whom we unjustly. . . .

. . . . calming Americans’ unreasoning dread of a Global Caliphate . . .

. . . . encouraging India to vaporize Pakistan, ushering in an era of peace in that troubled. . . .

Now, to save time, we’ll dispense with a self-serving statement from the Ranking Member and my esteemed colleague, Senator Lugar, and go right to questioning.  Suit you, Mr. Vice President?

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So what would happen if Barack Obama were to keep his promise to shut down the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and release enemy combatants housed there? According to the Bush administration, these terrorist sympathizers would immediately “set out to kill Americans or other innocent civilians around the world.”

That bleak assessment comes from a batch of documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) recently obtained by Judicial Watch. Overall, they detail the policies of the Bush administration related to the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the significant risks to the general population if the detainees were released.

The records, which we got through the Freedom of Information Act, include a “Summary of Conclusions” for a June 19, 2003, meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) Principals Committee, which included top Bush administration officials, as well as a February 4, 2004, draft presentation entitled “Guantanamo Detainees” that was previously marked “Not for Public Dissemination.”

Here are a few of the highlights:

•The NSC Summary of Conclusions includes a detailed list of Bush administration officials who attended the June 19, 2003, meeting, including: Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who chaired the meeting; Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Former Attorney General John Ashcroft; Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, among others. The meeting included representatives from the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, and Justice as well as the Office of Vice President, CIA, White House Counsel, Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Council.

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A member of the terrorist support group Code Pink assaults then Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice at a Congressional hearing, Oct. 24, 2007. AP Photo by Charles Dharapak

Code Pink co-founder and Democrat activist Jodie Evans and President Barack Obama, Oct. 15, 2009.

[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans. Click here to read earlier articles.]

House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (SC)  recently accused Republicans of “aiding and abetting terrorism” because of their support for the Tea Party movement. With all due respect, Rep. Clyburn needs to clean out his own party first before he has standing to say anything on the subject.

Top Democrat Party activists Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, through their group Code Pink, have spent the past eight years terrorizing soldiers, their families and public officials on the homefront while working with terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism abroad. Rather than being condemned and disowned, Code Pink is embraced by President Barack Obama and leading Democrats while being celebrated by the media.

The Code Pink Democrats have harassed wounded soldiers and their families at military hospitals in Washington, D.C. and San Diego; they have repeatedly targeted military recruiting centers for abuse; they cruelly taunted the children of military families at a White House Halloween party; they have terrorized government officials at their homes and they have led a campaign for the kidnapping of former President Bush and his wife Laura (for this they enlisted the support of the Muslim Brotherhood).

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The State of the Union Address is ordinarily a bore. It generally consists of a laundry list of proposals, and the list nearly always seems interminable. If Barack Obama has moxie, however, tonight could be different. His State of the Union Address could be a real game changer.

Here is how he could do it – if he was really intent on saving his Presidency and on turning a disgraceful performance in that office into something worthy of eulogy. This evening, after the usual formalities, he could say.

My fellow Americans, let me begin by stating the obvious. The state of our union is not good. We seem to be – we may be – coming out of a recession. But, if so, the recovery is not only jobless; it is accompanied by an increase in unemployment.

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It is evening. Dinner is over, and I can see Bill Clinton sitting back at a table. In my fantasy, he has a mischievous smile on his face and a cigar in his right hand; his left hand lies on the knee of a scantily-clad lass less than half his age; and he is waiting in vain for the President to call.

Republicans, when on the spot, are apt to ask themselves, “What would Reagan do?” Democrats would be well advised, when in similar straits, to ponder what Bill Clinton would do. For whatever one might think of him — and in the last couple of years Democrats have been as likely to badmouth the man as Republicans — Slick Willie is a survivor who knows how to stage a comeback when nearly everyone thinks him not only down but permanently out. It was with such a figure in mind that H. L. Mencken wrote these immortal words: “The smarter the politician, the more things he believes and the less he believes any of them.”

I have no doubt what advice Clinton would give Barack Obama if the latter were to make that call. He would tell him to jettison Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod; to hire a David Gergen, and a Dick Morris; to leave Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their minions twisting in the wind; and to announce in his State of the Union Address that the era of big government is once again at an end.

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From Guantanamo to Health Care, Obama is certainly seeking to Change America – or more accurately -to accelerate the pace of change from a private enterprise-freedom based civilization to a Big Government-run society.  According to Thomas Paine, “It is the duty of a patriot to protect his country from his government.”  I realize that is a slightly different definition than Joe Biden would use, but nevertheless, in that light, here is my listing of the worst of his policy decisions:

6. Bailing Out GM.  “His policy of public investments prevented necessary liquidations.  The businesses he hoped thus to save either went bankrupt in the end, after fearful agonies, or were burdened . . . by a crushing load of debt.  [He] undermined property rights . . .pushed federal credit into the banks and bullied them into inflating . . .” Historian Paul Johnson wrote that of Herbert Hoover.  You can almost substitute Obama’s name for Hoover’s  in every detail.   By the way, Government Motors sales are declining at 3 times the rate of the industry as a whole.  Hoover would be proud.

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