Biden tells Florida Rabbis that Pollard should die in jail

ii:  The New York Times, in an article published Saturday, reports that US vice president Joseph Biden told rabbis in Florida venemously that Jewish prisoner Jonathan Pollard -- now in his 26th year in a maximum security federal prison -- should serve his full life sentence in prison: "over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time."

US President Barack Obama has ignored formal requests from President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to commute Pollard's sentence to time served. "President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,’" Biden said. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.”

Biden allegedly made the statement during a meeting with rabbis in Boca Raton, Florida last week, when asked by one of the rabbis why Pollard had not been released. In a press release circulated by the Justice For Jonathan organization, it is stated that the vice president gave "absolutely no clue as to the reason for his flip-flop," which contradicts a video interview he gave in 2007 in which he expressed support for Pollard's release via commutation of his sentence to time served.

Biden also did not offer any explanation, the statement said, to contradict the opinions expressed by the former head of the CIA, the former- attorney- general, several former secretaries of state, the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the former White House legal counsel and "a host of others intimately familiar with the case, who all think freedom for Pollard is long overdue."

The group stated that Biden's change of heart on Pollard supported The New York Times contention that Biden's recent declaration that Pollard should never be released was a "stunt to take the hit for his boss, Obama." The president has been repeatedly criticized for his silence in response to requests by high ranking American official requests for Pollard's release, according to the group.

TheTimes reported that Obama is relying on Biden to help him retain the Jewish vote, seen by many to be slipping to the Republicans.  The Vice President's vitriolic rebuke to rabbinic pleas for mercy on Pollard won't help that cause.