Biden: 'I Promise You the President Has a Big Stick'

Vice President Joe Biden went after presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in a campaign address at New York University, questioning the former Massachusetts governor’s chops on foreign policy.

And, he was there to try to prop up his boss’ credentials.

“I promise you the president has a big stick. I promise you,” Biden said in reference to Teddy Roosevelt’s mantra.

Biden again credited President Obama for going after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan while questioning whether Romney would have made the same move. “This guy’s got a backbone like a ramrod. No, no, for real,” Biden said. “We can’t say for certain what Gov. Romney would have done.”

The vice president accused Romney of wanting to go “back to the future” on foreign policy.

“Back to a foreign policy that would have America go it alone — shout to the world you’re either with us or against us, lash out first and ask the hard questions later, if they get asked at all, isolate America instead of isolating our enemies, waste hundreds of billions of dollars and risk thousands of Americans’ lives on a war that’s unnecessary,” he said.

“Governor Romney, I think, is counting on collective amnesia of the American people,” Biden said.

It was the fifth in a series of Biden speeches that have put campaign issues such as Social Security in front of key audiences.

He charged that Romney would come into office with a “profound — a profound — misunderstanding” of a commander in chief’s responsibilities and a Cold War mentality “that is totally out of touch with the realities of the 21st century.”

“That kind of thinking may work for a CEO but it will not and cannot work for a president,” Biden said. “And it will not work for a commander in chief.”