Newly-nominated Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday counted on his long resume of foreign policy experience to slam the Bush administration and link Republican presidential candidate John McCain to an entrenched Iraq war policy and threatens Russia in a War Hawk position.

“Our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history,” Biden said. “The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole, with very few friends to help us climb out.”

The Delaware senator took the stage after accepting his party’s nomination by acclamation. He drew sharp contrasts between his new boss, Barack Obama, whom he will start campaigning with on Friday, and his old friend McCain.

“The choice in this election is clear. These times require more than a good soldier,” he said, referring to McCain’s military service that includes his legendary five and half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “They require a wise leader who can deliver change. The change everybody knows we need. Barack Obama will deliver that change.”

Biden cast doubt on McCain’s judgment for saying there can be no time lines to withdraw troops from Iraq and praised Obama for advocating a time line and shift in responsibility to the Iraqis.

“Now, after six long years, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are on the verge of setting a date to bring our troops home,” he said. “John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.”

Biden’s acceptance speech marks a high point in his 30-plus year political career that includes two failed bids for the White House. Biden’s career appeared to be heading back into obscurity after he dropped out of this year’s race

Biden’s son, Beau Biden, who is scheduled to go to Iraq Oct. 3 for a year-long deployment, introduced his father. Beau Biden, 39, is Delaware’s state attorney general and apparent heir to his father’s Senate seat if Democrats win the White House in November.

In his remarks, Beau Biden alluded to his imminent military service when he said because of other duties he won’t be able to stand by his father in the fall the way his father has for his family.

“So I have something to ask of you,” he said. “Be there for my dad like he was for me. Be there for Barack Obama because our country needs him. … Be there because Barack and Obama and Joe Biden will deliver America the change we so desperately need.”

In Biden, Obama chose a foreign policy heavyweight who has a biography as compelling as his own.

Elected to the Senate at the age of 29 in 1972, Biden confronted a personal tragedy before he could take office. His wife and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed when a tractor-trailer broad-sided her station wagon. His two sons survived the crash, and Biden took his oath of office for his first term at the hospital bedside his sons.

A Catholic with blue-collar roots, Biden, 65, is expected to appeal to working-class white voters that Obama struggled to pick up in the primaries.