U.S. Senators Joseph Biden (D-de) and Robert Menendez (D-Nj) Hold a News Conference On World Affairs

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U.S. Senators Joseph Biden (D-de) and Robert Menendez (D-Nj) Hold a News Conference On World Affairs

SENATORS MENENDEZ AND BIDEN HOLD A NEWS CONFERENCE ON WORLD AFFAIRS

JULY 19, 2006

SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE)

U.S. SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ)

[*] BIDEN: Good afternoon, folks.

Senator Menendez and I want to make a few brief statements and then open this to questions.

I'm going to speak directly to the situation that's occurring now with regard to Hezbollah and what actions that are taken and what actions, in my view, we should take.

Let me preface it by saying that I used to work with -- or there used to be a guy who was the chairman of the board of DuPont Company, an old farm boy who made it to the chairmanship. And he was a big old fellow named Heckert.

And he used to always use the phrase, first rule, what happens when you're in a hole is stop digging.

Well, this administration has dug us into a pretty deep hole in that region of the world, and we're paying the price for their lack of a foreign policy in the Middle East generally, Iraq and Lebanon specifically.

I had the privilege of witnessing and being, I guess, it was the official representative of the government at the Lebanese election last year.

And one of the concerns a lot of us had was, would this move, to have this election held the way it was, generate in this, quote, notion of democracy being an election, would it generate greater visibility and support for Hezbollah by them actually campai...

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