Too Much History

Think back on vice-presidential candidates past. Some of them have been remarkably prominent individuals, even recent opponents of the ticket head-liner. Names like Lyndon Johnson come to mind or Hubert Humphrey. They sometimes win and sometimes lose disastrously. The real individual who is responsible for winning the election is the candidate himself.

More often the VP choice is someone decidedly unfamiliar on the national stage, someone innocuous and with implications of undiscovered talent that will be groomed for a possible future. Franklin D. Roosevelt had no qualms about changing Vice-Presidents even while encouraging the Abraham Lincoln caution regarding not changing horses in mid-stream. FDR went through three of them, none of whom were particularly remarkable prior to their selection. Harry Truman, turned out pretty good when thrust into the Oval Office.

Consider Dan Quayle, for example. The only thing they could pin on him was how he spelled his vegetables. Not really very damning. Or, for that matter, how about Dick Cheney? Certainly he’s been vilified in office, but the opposition simply couldn’t muster much in terms of really outrageous earlier scandal. He really became acceptable in his “gravitas” providing role because of his age and lack of presidential ambition.

That’s what makes the Biden choice so weird for me. The mantra has been about “change” but how can you suggest that you are going to clean house if you are joined at the hip with a guy who has been in the US Senate for the last 35 years. Is it “change” to move your office ten blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue?

Then there is the problem of Joe’s record. He’s got a long and rich history of inflammatory rhetoric. He’s been a favorite of talk shows and press conferences because the things he says are invariably going to make great sound-bites. He has always got something to say and it is always going to be sarcastic, demeaning, partisan, embarrassing and colorful. Watch him in a Senate committee hearing and you are certain to learn what he thinks and seldom what the expert giving testimony has to say. He’s a loose cannon, a train wreck in progress, an immature adolescent in sixty-five year-old’s clothing.

But maybe the most disturbing is this bit of memorabilia from the Biden files:

At Least They Found Some Writings He Would Claim

You might remember the question about ten days ago regarding where all of the writings of the former editor of the Harvard Law Review have gone. The conspicuous lack of a legacy documenting Sen. Obama’s legal thought is certainly not duplicated in the case of Sen. Biden. The problem, however, seems to be the opposite. It seems that almost anything written could be claimed at one time or another by Joe.

At least that’s what the New York Times was saying. Do you think they will revisit the topic? I doubt it.