Ed Morrissey: "Soviet Document Shows Biden Sold Out Human-Rights Concerns"

In 1979, while Pope John Paul II was travelling to Poland, preaching a message of human rights and inherent human dignity, thereby giving hope to his oppressed people and spelling the beginning of the end of the scourge of Soviet communism, Sen. Joe Biden may have been, according to Soviet-era documents, busy undermining those efforts. Ed Morrissey reports:

According to internal Soviet Union documents from the SALT-2 negotiations in 1979, Joe Biden effectively told Soviet negotiators not to worry about American rhetoric about human-rights concerns. In fact, Biden also told the Soviets that the Senate didn’t really care about European security, but only in giving the appearance of caring about it. Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov parse the dispatch from the deputy head of the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for Front Page Magazine ...

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... Biden and Lugar may have wanted to clear the talks from all other considerations, which might make sense, except for the rhetoric of Biden and Carter on human rights and their criticism of previous administrations for ignoring the issue in past negotiations. Biden and other Democrats would make that same criticism through the Reagan administration, right up to the collapse of the USSR.

If Biden sold out the refuseniks while he and his party screeched about their plight, then he has already demonstrated a lack of resolve and character for higher office. Biden needs to explain himself.

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(emphasis added)