Obama-Biden -- that's the ticket

I was just delighted when I awoke this morning to learn that Barack Obama has tagged Joe Biden to be his running mate. The selection not only highlights Obama's weaknesses, but it also adds to the Democratic ticket a man who has significant flaws of his own.

To begin with the obvious: Could Obama have shouted more loudly to the American public "Yes, it is true that I have no experience!"? Had he picked a running mate who merely had somewhat more experience than he himself has, that would have have comforted the public, but would not have cast a spotlight on Obama's obvious absence of any practical experience. By selecting a man who has made Senatorial politics his life's job (he's on his sixth term), Obama effectively announced that he needs lots and lots and lots of help in the experience department. In other words, Obama's choice is the worst possible backdrop to highlight his greatest weakness.

Next most obvious point: What in the world States does Obama think Biden is going to help him deliver? Biden is the Senator for Delaware, for goodness' sake. He has name recognition from his longevity and his own (failed) Presidential runs, but he does not have emotional resonance for any specific geographic region. He's not going to carry any useful states or regions for Obama -- which is, again, a reminder that he's simply there to offset Obama's myriad failings.

Another obvious point: Biden is a thief. He doesn't steal objects, he steals ideas. Thus, he has a long history of plagiarism, which is nicely summarized at the "Famous Plagiarists" website:

In 1965 Biden plagiarized while writing a paper as a student at the Syracuse University Law School in a legal methods course which he failed because of that copied paper. Such “stressless scholarship” as it is euphemistically called has become all too common in the modern Internet era with countless cheatsites and “research services” offering to sell students papers on topics from A to Z.

[snip]

In an article entitled “Biden’s Belly Flop”, Newsweek printed Joe Biden’s yearbook picture from his college days and a copy of his law school transcripts with the big “F” in his transcripts circled. Biden was given a chance to repeat his legal methods course, and above the “F” his retake grade of 80% was eventually penciled in. Being a repeat offender when it came to plagiarism made things much, much worse for Biden than they might have been otherwise in his failed bid for the Democratic presidential ticket in 1987.

Senator Biden’s plagiarism of a speech by British Labor Party leader Neal Kinnock took place at a campaign stump at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. In closing his speech, Biden took Kinnock’s ideas and language as if they were his very own inspired thoughts, prefacing Kinnock’s ideas with the phrase “I started thinking as I was coming over here . . . “. Little did Biden suspect that video footage of this speech would be spliced together with footage of Kinnock’s speech in an “attack video” which would be distributed by members of the Dukakis campaign.

[snip]

Name recognition was no longer a problem for Biden, but not the kind of name recognition which would assist his campaign for the democratic presidential nomination. His name was now a byword for plagiarism. His situation became a classic example of plagiarism for high school teachers and college instructors across the nation lecturing on the evils of unacknowledged source use.

Biden initially denied any wrongdoing, claiming that this was just an inadvertent lack of acknowledgement. Yet there were other instances of rhetorical borrowing from speeches made by Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. And the fact that Biden had given other speeches using the Kinnock passages without acknowledgment suggested that the lifting was more than just an inadvertent oversight.

Given the fact that the public is always outraged by signs of corruption in the White House, and given how badly burned America was when the hyper-corrupt Clintons entered that same institution, do Americans really want to have a do-over with Biden? His disregard for ethics is not casual, it's habitual, and there's every reason to believe that he will fall again. Further, given increasing evidence that Obama has a corrupt streak (think Rezko), do we really need a two-for-one pair when it comes to dishonesty on the Democratic ticket?

Oh, here's another obvious point: Biden suffers from foot-in-mouth disease. Of my two favorite Biden quotations, one concerns Obama himself: "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." The other Biden quotation I just love, one that tells you way more about the man than anyone really wants to know, is this one, a statement Biden made to a potential voter during his first Presidential, when that voter questioned his law school grades: "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do." As to that last point, I guess he and Obama are a good match, because both that ordinary Americans are stupid.

Wait! Wait! I've got another obvious point: Obama hit the political scene as someone who had consistently opposed the Iraq War. That's how he was able to spirit the most diehard Democrats away from the Hillary camp. But Biden was pro-War. He voted for it, and made such memorable statements as "One thing is clear: These weapons must be must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam must be dislodged from power." Having a running mate who was a hawk is not going to placate the MoveOn crowd.

Lastly, there's the fact that Biden has the whiff of failure about him. He's a two-time loser in the Presidential sweeptakes, never having made it through the primaries.

Let me wrap up here with Jim Geraghty's take on Biden, some of which echoes my own thoughts:

It's hard for Obama supporters to play the age card any longer, as their potential veep is all of six years younger than McCain.

The candidate of hope and change selected a running mate who was first elected to public office when Obama was 9 years old. He was elected to the Senate when Obama was 11.

The bottom of the ticket running on change has been in Washington forever.

He voted for the Iraq War — which Obama touted as the most important decision since the end of the Cold War.

Biden supports a ban on partial-birth abortion. He supports deploying U.S. troops to Darfur in Sudan.

His mouth will be an absolute time bomb. Will he refer to Delaware as a "slave state" again? Will he discuss who's behind the counter at 7-11s?

I'm reminded of a Rudy Giuliani response when Biden took a shot at him — "Joe's a good guy, we all criticize each other during this time... But for Joe Biden to talk about qualifications — he's never run a city, he's never run a state, he's never run a business."

That statement is true for both men on the Democratic ticket.

Other than Biden's mouth, it's a relatively safe pick. But since he'll be spending just about every waking moment between now and Election Day in front of television cameras... look out.

Bottom line: When the press isn't covering for Obama, and he's working off his own arrogance and inexperience, he's the gift that just keeps giving, something the McCain campaign instantly figured out.