Barack Obama has decided upon a vice-presidential running mate. And while I don’t know who it is as I write, for the good of the country, I hope he picked Joe Biden.
Biden’s weaknesses are on the surface. He has said a number of idiotic things over the years and, in the days following his selection, those snippets would be aired again and again.
But that won’t hurt all that much because voters are smart enough to forgive the genuine flaws of genuine people. And over the long haul, Biden provides what Obama needs:
...and for once I'm going to tell you to go read the rest.
It isn't that Biden is the dream candidate. He's a hack to end all hacks, and I can't get that image of him saying "I like you....you're the real deal" to Alberto Gonzales" out of my head. That he said it as part of a typically long-winded Biden diatribe that when read in full, is meant to disarm Gonzales through bonhomie while asking him tough questions is immagerial. It's that one line that we remember. He's an attention hog, he was entirely too chummy with the gasbags of the Sunday morning "news" shows, and then there's that disastrous bankruptcy bill, which now looks definitively like what it was -- an early attempt to keep lenders and credit card companies from holding the bag whenthe housing bubble burst.
But it's his very brash style that would be a terrific counterpoint to Obama's more measured, thoughtful, unflappability. Imagine a campaign where the #1 guy who's the cool customer you want doing the thinking in the crisis, and the #2 guy who's leaping around like a puppy. That image of Dan Quayle being introduced in 1984 just popped into your head, didn't it? Now imagine that the leaping puppy has 30 years of experience in not just navigating the hackery of Washington, but foreign policy cred behind him.
And now I just want to go back to bed. Because the fact that I linked to David Brooks without the word "idiot" appearing in its context is just too depressing.
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