Reply #26: Of course. [View All]

[Igel]

He's not VP, so he goes as a senator--as though what he learns there will impact, for good or for bad, how he votes in the senate and the legislation he'll introduce as a member of the foreign relations committee.

On the surface, it's like accepting an employee's resignation, and the week before it takes effect you send him to a week-long professional development seminar. It's a waste of money unless there's something else going on, and to insist that, really, it's to help the employee do a better job on that last day of work is too disingenuous for words to describe.

However, there's neither authority nor funding for VP Biden to make the trip, so instead the Senate sprang for it.