Joe Biden fits the ticket's requirements to a "T." I know that some people think he is verbose. But there are no ten-word responses to intricate questions, especially to issues of foreign policy about which history also is relevant. We've had eight-years of ten-word thinking and ten-word speaking. I long for an administration that grasps that the world is not only round but also deep.
Another asset of Joe Biden's is that his personal finances are middle class finances. He will understand -- as John Kerry and John Edwards cannot possibly understand, nor John McCain, for that matter -- the real-life choices that many, maybe most Americans can no longer make. In my state of Massachusetts, there are tens of thousands of college students who won't be college students this year because the loans have simply dried up. I wonder in how many other states and for how many other young men and women college will be delayed or even chucked completely this fall.
As I skim the articles about Obama's designation of Biden, I notice the last choleric whimpering of the Clinton die-hards. According to an A.P. dispatch they figured out early on, and so had Bill and Hillary, that she could not be the vice presidential designee simply because the presidential nominee had not asked for her financial records. Imagine what those records look like. Yes, she wanted us to think of her this spring as Rosie the riveter. But the truth is that HiIlary is a mix between Hetty Green and Jessica Mitford (sister of fascist Diana Mosley, poor Hitler-enraptured Diana) with whose husband's Communist Party law firm Hillary clerked during law school. A chameleon with avarice and left-wing ideals, besides.