Obama, Biden, and the Anti-Climax

Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the leaders who will bring the change our country needs. But they can't do it alone.

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Barack Obama has made history.

No presidential candidate has ever announced his vice presidential running mate in such a lame way.

--Be the first to know. Obama will send the announcement to you via text message.

--Obama has made his decision.

--The announcement is coming.

--Expect the announcement later in the week.

--Expect the announcement at the end of the week.

--The announcement is imminent.

--Are you ready? Get ready. Here it comes.

--Not yet.

--Not yet.

--Not yet.

--No announcement on Friday. It will be made on Saturday morning.

--It's Biden.

What suspense! What drama! What was the point?

Whoop-de-do.

All this hype and for what?

Joe "I voted for Iraq" Biden is Obama's choice.

Clearly, the Obama campaign didn't want to give talk radio hosts the opportunity to discuss Obama's running mate selection immediately after it was announced. So the announcement was on hold-- rumors and then delays, rumors and delays, rumors and delays.

I think the campaign wanted to slow John McCain's momentum. Obama wanted to determine the topic of the day. He wanted the day to be about speculation on his VP choice and get people to quit focusing on his terrible decision to make the number of properties owned by McCain and his wife an issue.

That bungling turned into a disastrous discussion about Obama's shady real estate deals and his relationship with convicted felon Tony Rezko. It put the spotlight on the filthy rich, pampered Dems and their wealth, and their lavish lifestyles.

So the Obama camp made the idiotic decision to make the announcement after midnight.

This shows that Obama and the Dems are absolutely terrified of conservative talk radio and TV pundits. Toss the conservative blogosphere in there as well.



They determined that they needed to have as much control as possible over the coverage of the introduction of the Democrat 2008 presidential ticket, avoiding immediate commentary and criticism by conservatives, as if buying time that way can make a difference.

This post-midnight weekend announcement is bizarre.

I was watching the Olympics and saw Lester Holt break in with the news. He was wearing glasses with thick black frames. I barely recognized him. NBC was having audio difficulties. For what seemed like an incredibly long time, Holt's lips were moving, but he couldn't be heard. Then there was a commercial break to staighten things out. Holt returned, sans glasses, and delivered the earth-shaking news -- Biden.

Yawn.

I wanted to watch water polo.

From FOX News:

The blunt and seasoned chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is a veteran of more than three decades in the Senate, and one of his party’s leading experts on foreign policy – an area in which polls indicate Obama needs help in his race against John McCain.

Obama plans to announce his selection to supporters by text message Saturday morning, before the newly minted Democratic ticket heads to Springfield, Ill. – where Obama launched his campaign — for its first public appearance.

An official told FOX News Biden, 65, is the pick on the condition of anonymity, after officials confirmed that other tops prospects were informed they were not going to be selected as Obama’s No. 2.

No sooner had word spread of his selection than McCain’s campaign unleashed its first volley. Spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement that Biden had “denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be president.”

As evidence, Republicans cited an ABC interview from August 2007, in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

...McCain’s campaign swiftly responded to the selection of Biden, claiming he only supports their argument that Obama is unfit to lead.

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing – that Barack Obama is not ready to be president,” McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement.

How weird that the announcement came under cover of darkness.

There was a "Baltimore Colts are leaving in the middle of the night" vibe to it.

I think the selection of Biden illustrates that Obama is really running scared in terms of his stunning lack of experience.

Biden doesn't fit the change and hope message that so many of Obama's supporters find so appealing. He's an old Washington insider, carrying around a lot of baggage.

There's nothing fresh or exciting or young about Biden.

It certainly helps McCain to have 65-year-old Biden's face in the picture. Biden's hair plugs are also a plus. He's superficial and vain.

Beyond his age, Biden not only fails to bring much of substance to help Obama, but he's actually a drag on the ticket.

All those debates during the primary season with all the attacks Biden made on Obama are perfect fodder for McCain.

Moreover, Biden is dragging along miles of his foot-in-mouth moments.

For example, here are a few of Biden's blunders:

In an interview with the Washington Post's Editorial Board, Biden stumbled, badly.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In what the Washington Post is describing as a "stumble," Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in an interview with the paper Wednesday that Washington's high minority population is one of the reasons for the city's education problems.

Explaining why schools in Iowa are performing better than those in Washington, D.C., Biden told the Post, "There's less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with."

"When you have children coming from dysfunctional homes, when you have children coming from homes where there's no books, where the mother from the time they're born doesn't talk to them — as opposed to the mother in Iowa who's sitting out there and talks to them, the kid starts out with a 300 word larger vocabulary at age three. Half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom," the Delaware Democrat added.

The paper reports Biden's campaign quickly sought to clarify the remarks, saying in a statement that the senator was not making a "race-based distinction" but rather a "socio-economic" one.

I don't believe that Biden thinks African-Americans in Washington are less intelligent than Iowa's overwhelmingly non-minority population.

I buy the explanation that Biden was making a socio-economic distinction.

However, for a politician with his years of experience, you'd think the guy would stop stepping in it. You'd think he would have learned something.

He's made a number of awkward, racially-charged remarks.

For example, Biden said about Barack Obama:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

On FOX News Sunday, when discussing his "Northeast liberal" label:

"You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state."

At an appearance, shaking hands with a man and boasting about his support among Indian-Americans:

"You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

Not good.

In addition, it should be interesting to watch Biden backtrack on all of his comments about Obama's lack of experience.

I like this one:

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman and presidential candidate Joe Biden has joined the gang piling on Barack Obama for proposing possible intervention in Pakistan to pursue Al Qaeda -- using the same word Hillary Clinton used to criticize Obama's eagerness to negotiate with dictators: naïve.

In an interview on The Diane Rehm Show this morning, Biden told guest host Susan Page of USA Today the following:

"… in order to look tough, he's undermined his ability to be tough, were he president. Because if you're going to go into Pakistan -- which is already our policy by the way, if there's actionable intelligence -- you need actionable intelligence from moderates within Pakistan working with you. Now if you're already going to say I'm going to disregard whatever the country thinks and going to invade, the likelihood you're getting the cooperation you need evaporates. It's a well intended notion he has, but it's a very naïve way of figuring out how you're going to conduct foreign policy."

Obama and Biden.

Barack, Mr. Articulate and Clean, and Joe, Mr. Gravitas.

Biden as Dick Cheney.

It's funny to watch the libs suddenly turn Biden into one of America's greatest statesmen, after they resoundingly rejected Biden to be the Democrat party's presidential candidate more than once -- too boring, too much of a blowhard, too Biden.