In refusing to take a stance on the Israeli-Hamas conflict this past week, President-elect Barack Obama has used the excuse that there’s only one President at a time. Engaging in something involving foreign policy would send mixed signals, Obama says. But then why is Vice President-elect Joe Biden traveling to the hotspots of the world at the same time?

Joe Biden has always had a flair for doing things differently – but his upcoming trip to South Asia may set a new standard.

The vice president-elect will be traveling to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But he won’t really be traveling as the vice president-elect – he’ll be traveling as the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Only he’ll be resigning from the Senate in a few weeks. Even though he was sworn in Tuesday for his seventh term.

Got that?

Many foreign policy observers don’t, raising the concern that officials in the countries on Biden’s itinerary may hold to the quaint notion that the vice president-elect is the vice president-elect and that Biden will be sending not-very-subtle signals about U.S. policy in the Obama administration – even though George W. Bush is still in office…

As for how he’ll make sure foreign leaders know he’s there as a senator not as vice president-elect: Biden will go out of his way to make it clear that he’s not there to propose policy, the official said. There will be no one-on-one meetings between Biden and foreign leaders. All meetings will take place with the full delegation and the full delegation will brief Obama on its findings.

But foreign affairs analysts don’t buy it. “You can pretend all you want,” Donnelly said. “He can’t just speak in his senatorial dimension.”

His excuse, as Politico notes, is that he’s there in his Senatorial role. Yet all of these countries he’s visiting know very well that he’ll be the Vice President in 13 days. Do you think they view him as the Senator from Delaware or the next VP?

Truth be told, I’ve never understood how Obama expressing an opinion on the Israeli-Hamas conflict would send mixed signals to the world. The current president is standing with Israel while looking for a peaceful solution. Does Obama differ from that position? If not, what’s the harm in a man who will lead the country in less than two weeks expressing his agreement with the current president? Where’s the mixed signal?