Heeeere's......Joey!

As all of the media thought, and as how I'd been reduced to hoping, here is our Democratic ticket:

I think this is a good choice. Yes, Biden is a hack. Yes, he voted for the interests of the banking industry in voting for the bankruptcy bill that is causing homeowners even more problems in the face of foreclosure. Yes, he's a male, and the Hillarions are going to be furious today. But he's about the best choice Obama could make of the available options.

So what WOULD have been so bad about choosing Hillary Clinton? Two words: Bill Clinton. I had reached the point where I was beginning to think it wasn't such a bad idea after all, especially after names like Tim Kaine (too little experience, name too similar to the Republican nominee's, aggressively bad hair, too right-wing) and Evan Bayh (colorless, another right wing blue dog, unfortunate physical resemblance to John Edwards) and Chet Edwards (Who? Unfortunate last name) were bandied about. Yes, I think Wesley Clark would also have been a good choice, but whether it's fair or not, one poorly-worded, if accurate and out of context, quote, would have sunk the entire ticket. But while I think Hillary is smart enough to be able to handle being #2, and would have been a decent choice, Bill Clinton was so clearly not going to accept Barack Obama as the nominee, and it became so clear that it was all about "The Restoration of Bill" where he was concerned, that he, and he alone sunk Hillary's chances.

Biden can go out there and be the bad cop. He's smart, he's quick-witted, he's a master of the soundbite, and he's utterly shameless. And with Obama being the cool customer that he is, a little fire to Obama's ice isn't a bad thing.

And frankly, we owe him. Because if it weren't for Joe Biden, we'd be running against the self-appointed Saint of 9/11. And if it weren't for Joe Biden, the six words he used to singlehandedly end the presidential hopes of Rudy Giuliani wouldn't be so neatly translatable to "a noun, a verb, and POW." It isn't an accident that the mainstream media are now questioning whether Camp Grandpa Simpson has gone to the POW well once too often. So now Biden's his turn to find six new words to encapsulate the cravenness, the willful stupidity, the greed, and the corruption of John McCain.