Alternating with him was Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was fighting for the President's bill over Biden's. The bills had three differences. First, everyone supported more death penalty eligible cases, and Biden bragged he had come up with 72 while Bush only had 50 something. Most were for drug-related offenses. The difference was the Republicans wanted the Racial Justice provision stripped from the bill, and the House refused to budge. Biden said he liked the provision, but could do without it, since it wouldn't pass anyway.

Next, Bush and Thurmon wanted to eviscerate habeas corpus appeals in state Cases. Biden's response was to suggest a one year limit, which is just what we got in 1996 with AEDPA.

Biden's biggest beef was that there was no money for cops, agents and prosecutors. He wanted to give out grant money for cop programs like it grows on trees.

Finally, after about 4 hours of this back and forth with Thurmon and others, the Republicans said fine, we'll give you the money , but we want an up or down vote on the President's bill. The President's bill eviscerated the 4th Amendment with its provision that cops should get a "good faith exeption for warrantless searches. Biden didn't like that, but he decided only 1% of cases get suppressed, so it's not that big a deal.

Before I get into the quotes, let me just say (as I've said before) Joe Biden has a single constituency -- law enforcement. In his eyes, they do G-ds work. He asks for billions more money for them. Our leaders should look out for all of us, not just their favorites. You can be sure that if he is President, anytime a bill comes up, he'll be asking for it to include more money for cops.

Some of his quotes. He complained that that Bush is unhappy his crime bill isn't getting passed and blames Congress. Biden s