Obama-Biden-- It Could Have Been Worse, Much Worse

I wish Obama luck with his mediocre choice of a running mate. It could have been much worse. But it certainly tells us a lot about what the real Barack Obama's relationship will be with the status quo.

I warned my friend Jamil, who first persuaded me to give Obama another chance after Edwards bowed out, not to expect much from Obama. I wish I had listened to my own advice. Biden isn't a blood enemy of The People like Evan Bayh, John McCain or Mitt Romney. But it's not for no reason that David Brooks, the Times most clueless and reactionary columnist was pumping for him.

Biden is a moderate Democrat, the 29th most progressive this session (Obama is the 46th most progressive), 30th most progressive for his career. He voted with Bush and Cheney on Iraq and on most issues he's been a representative of anything but change. If Obama manages to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, his selection of utterly uninspiring Biden will be looked at as one of the reasons. (And isn't he in the middle of a Senate re-election bid? I guess he'll run for both-- like his pal Lieberman did in 2000, demonstrating the same kind of unattractive political spinelessness.)

If Biden starts looking a little too unappealing... watch this a few times:




UPDATE: RESPONSE FROM THE DARK SIDE

McCain (with the help of bottom fisher media shills like AP's pathetic Ron Fournier) will help skeptical Democrats and independents like myself rally around Biden. Here's the ad that the vicious coterie of lobbyists and Rovians put together. They pulled a 2005 quote from Biden saying he'd be honored to run with or against McCain-- one of the (several) old versions of McCain, not the new ultimate monstrosity he has unmasked in the last three years. Part of that unmasking came during his barrage of attacks against Mitt Romney, the empty suit he despises but who he's been forced to agree to take on as his running mate:




DO YOU GET THE FEELING WE DODGED A BULLET?

by Ken

All of what Howie said, plus this: Don't you get the feeling that we dodged a bullet on this? That in fact the choice really was going to be Evan Bayh (whom I'm tempted to call "unspeakable," except that gives him too much credit -- "not worth speaking about" seems closer)?

I'm not saying it was us blogospheric crazies who changed the course of history (such as it is -- come January Obama and Biden could both be footnotes to history). But I really don't think the Obama people who thought they'd found their guy were expecting such widespread expressions of unenthusiasm for Bayh. I think the message hit home that the choice of that empty an empty suit would reflect badly on the presidential candidate's judgment and self-confidence. When you get right down to it, could he really have stood up and told the country that this was the person he considered most qualified to step into the presidency should the need arise?

Obviously I have mixed feelings about Biden, and as I wrote recently (in my "more or less final thoughts on the selection process"), the mere fact that so many of us can breathe a sigh of relief at his selection says something -- and I mean something quite terrible -- about the selection process that produced the choice. At the same time, at least Biden is somebody. There's a functioning mind, and one that has spent a lot of years grappling with the full range of issues of American governance. There is, in other words, a "there" there.