Biden, Baby

David Brooks came at Crazy Joe from a slightly different direction than I long have, but our bottom lines are the same: Joe Biden is the right Vice Presidential pick for Barack Obama. And now that our nation's most esteemed commentators, from Ron Fournier to Ed Morrisey to McCain spokesman Ben Porritt, have begun a manure dump of insult and ridicule calibrated to reveal how the Biden pick reveals Obama's basic frailty and foolishness, the fun may start in earnest. 

There are three main things you want out of a Veep. 

(1) The ability to appear in public 24 hours a day, uttering incessant and high-profile attacks on the opposition, without overshadowing the Presidential candidate.

(2) The ability to shape the office of the Vice Presidency, post-Cheney, into something more than useless but less than monstrous. 

(3) The ability to square dispositionally with the Presidential candidate without disappearing into his aura or echoing his every instinct.

This is why Cheney was an exceptional (1 and 3) but not perfect (2!) veep, whereas Biden is an extraordinary, almost perfect choice. If Ben Porritt thinks he's got Obama behind the 8-Ball with charges like these, McCain had better lock Romney in a refrigerator and throw him into the sea:

No sooner had word spread of his selection than McCain's campaign unleashed its first attack. 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."

Biden and Obama make sense together at the gut level, in a way Bush/Quayle or Gore/Lieberman never did. Biden is old but not too old (whereas Bayh, for example, was too old to be young and too young to be old); and his name looks right on that new run of bumper stickers headed our way. ("Obama/Sebelius? Whut's that, some kinda Arab Ocktypus?") Biden makes a great VP pick for the same reason his Presidential campaigns never soared: he is the best second-rate career politician the Democrats have, and he will never chafe in office with the same celebrity ambitions of a Clinton or a Gore. Indeed, Obama's 'throwback' move executes a conscious break with the Democratic past, a past which has been, in every way but Clinton's weird and almost superficial two terms, a near-total failure. The Fournier/Morrisey line is simply ridiculous: 

Obama, who supposedly represents a new brand of politics, has instead hitched his wagon to an old-time pol who has trouble coming up with his own words when he campaigns. That’s desperation, and what’s more, it’s obvious desperation. And in politics, just as in dating, desperation is not an aphrodisiac.

That's Morrisey. Fournier:

In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness — inexperience in office and on foreign policy — rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions. He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate — the ultimate insider — rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t even make his short list.

Ah, Hillary -- the ultimate outsider! Chuck Hagel is the whitest man in America. Tim Kaine is the second whitest. Ron Fournier simply does not know what he is talking about, perhaps not even what he is smoking. When you are desperate, you double down on what isn't working; you take your most prominent features and you make a caricature of them. The proof is in Hillary Clinton's pudding -- not to mention Bill Clinton's, George W. Bush's, the Al Gore of 2000's, Bob Dole's, Elizabeth Dole's ("I will use the bully pulpit!!!" Remember that?), and on and on and on. Ed Morrisey has it completely backwards. Obama's desperation pick would have been his very own Geraldine Ferraro, some New Math/Glamor Change candidate as fresh out of the gate as he is. And oh, how they would have laughed. Two unprepared and underqualified bobos for the price of one!

No, Biden is not a sign of desperation but its opposite: calm. Recall that picking Biden is a giant kiss-off to the Democratic party since Clinton -- and a reminder that Biden would have made, by championship long jumps, a better Presidential nominee than a hapless knob like Dukakis or a professional chump like Walter Mondale. These guys are Losers, and Biden has only lost repeatedly at one thing in his life: running for President. Good thing then that this time he is finally being permitted to win at something he can do and do well: run for Vice President. And good thing that Obama recognizes that everything the Democratic Party has grown since Bubba seeded the garden needs to be left to seed, with no mercy and no ceremony, and certainly no press coverage. Biden is at once the pick of a man who recognizes that transformationally changing the Vice Presidency with a message of hope and healing is one hopefully healing transformation too many...and the pick of a man who knows how elevating Biden at this critical point in the history of the Democratic Party really does make possible a healing of the breach between the years, the voters, and the ethos of life before Clintonism and after. 

David Brooks, Peter Lawler, and I are all right about Joe Biden, and if you disagree with any of us, you are not.

Comments

[Ted]

Biden — the perfect foil for Palin!

[FatManAfterDark]

I had been saying that Obama needed a Crazy Joe type for a while but I felt to the very end he would go with someone out of the Beltway, someone young and just as inexperienced as the Obamessiah himself. This is a good pick I agree but then I'm selfish and look forward to the entertainment about to come.

In other news, the PostModern Conservative made an appearance in my dream last night. We were at a big celebration dedicated to you and Tucker Carlson walked in just as I was walking outside to smoke a cigar. That's all I really remember.

[Freddie]

God, a Biden-Romney debate would be the most entertaining thing I see all year. Please, choose Romney. Please, please, please.

[William Burns]

Mondale and Dukakis actually won the Democratic nomination for president--how does that make them losers (or "Losers") compared to Biden?

[Theo]

Thanks for this post. Biden is obviously a very smart choice. His rhetorical style and manner eschews cliches of Democrat politicians that someone like Evan Bayh would have blandly confirmed. All of the negative spins on this selection on I've read seem either short-sighted or disingenuous.

[mattc]

"David Brooks, Peter Lawler, and I are all right about Joe Biden, and if you disagree with any of us, you are not."

I get it, but at the same time I don't get it. Biden and Obama are polar opposites in my view - maybe this makes no difference in the Pres-VP relationship but I don't see how it couldn't. Biden doesn't seem like the type of person who will take the VP gig "lying down" so to speak. I can imagine him saying something that Obama will have to completely refute the next day.

My biggest question is: how does this make the left feel? Isn't this like a swift kick to the grundle for them?

[David Kuo]

fantastic, fantastic post

[cnnr]

you are dead-on with your analysis that this is the best vice presidential pick ever. Ambinder said that it's an uncomfortable choice for Obama. I completely disagree: they'll be a fantastic team if Obama wins.

Obama has shown once again his excellent judgment.

ALl those other conservatives are saying what they want to convince themselves of, not what they secretly know.

[Freddie]

Isn't this like a swift kick to the grundle for them?

Why? Properly applied, the vice president's duties amount to approximately jack and shit. This pick is about politics, not governance.