The Change You Can Believe in Bullshit

I've never liked Barack Obama.  Never been impressed with him.  But not because he is black.  Quite frankly, I could not give a damn what color his skin is.  I don't like him because I think he is dumb.  I think he backed into his Senate seat because another dumb Illinois politician (this one a Republican) was a sexual deviant and a pervert.

But the Joe Biden pick for VP is a move of stupidity and abject desperation.  It doesn't represent change, it represents sheer and voluminous stupidity on a massive scale.  Obama just painted a huge red target on his campaign.  The Joe Biden history of gaseous pomposity is long and deep, and you can bet that the right wing will be ramping up the attack machine (as they should!) for full frontal assault beginning Monday.

First, Biden is the fourth most senior Senator, and the sixth most senior Democrat in all of Congress.  He represents "old" Washington as much as John McCain.  This isn't change at all. It's same old, same old.

Second, Biden's place on the ticket is because of his alleged bona fides on foreign policy, and area that Obama is so weak in, he makes Jimmy Carter look appealing.  That pick only accentuates the fact that when the call comes in at 3 am, Obama will need to call the Naval Observatory to come up with an answer.

Third, Biden has his own "credit" issues with MBNA, facts that are likely to come out sooner rather than later.  Some questionable loans and rates, by virtue of his being a Senator from Delaware, and MBNA (formerly) being headquartered there.

Fourth, Biden is an attack dog.  Which is probably another reason he was picked.  He is not afraid to mix it up.  That is not a "new" transcendent politics.  This is not "change we can believe in".  This is good old-fashioned, knock-down drag-out politics.  So Obama is definitely casting aside the "new politics" that marked his primary campaign.

Finally, Slo Joe Biden has a long media history.  A very long media history.  There are video clips and speeches that go back a long ways.  These are naturally going to be targets of opportunity for the McCain campaign and its surrogates.  There is the electronic lynching of Clarence Thomas, the "pompous gasbaggery" during the Roberts and Alito hearings, and more.  From a conservative's point of view, the vault of Slo Joe Biden and his mouth is like Jesse James' hidden treasure.  Just one nugget:

Then Biden puts a hand on the reporter’s shoulder and with demonic pleasure lights into Tom DeLay. “The guy hasn’t talked to members of his family in I don’t know how many years,” he says. “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious, I’m gonna shove my rosary beads down their throat!”

H/T: Kathryn Jean Lopez

My point is that while Obama may feel that he has strengthened a weakness, he hasn't.  He has weakened his campaign in a myriad of other ways.  That is bad politics to be sure, but it is abjectly stupid.

Let's just hope John McCain has the testicular fortitude to take advantage of it.