Biden's Wooly Bully

Sen. Joe Biden has stopped being an apologist for the war, which is more than can be said for certain other Democratic candidates for President. He says he would have voted against the war if he had known what he knows now, particularly that George W. Bush would use war as a first resort.

But whether or not Biden's initial support for the war is disqualifying, his appearance on Meet the Press confirmed today that Biden has a far worse Kerryesque flaw: he cannot stop being Senator Foghorn. The Democrats cannot again have their candidate strangled in his own syntax.

Like Kerry, instead of answering a question with a clear statement, Biden takes the great circle route, including liberally quoting himself. Take this answer on today’s program, where he is so intent on referencing his own statements that he launches into an incomprehensible triple negative:

MR. RUSSERT: . . . Is Secretary Rumsfeld being candid when he says that he has provided all the troops that his commanders on the ground have requested?
SEN. WARNER: Blah, blah, blah.
SEN. BIDEN: Tim, I've been there five times. I reported on your show and others. I don't know what they tell Rumsfeld, but flag officers, guys wearing stars, not one single time, including the last one, Memorial Day, and I'm going again in 12 days, have I not been told by flag officers that they did not have enough forces. . . .

I've been calling for more troops for over two years, along with John McCain and others subsequent to my saying that.

Now, I have been a little unfair with the ellipses, there was some actual content there, but it was wrapped in such a package of self-aggrandizement and pomposity that it got lost. Biden also failed his audition on The Daily Show a month or so ago, where he was mortally uncomfortable.

Biden cannot give a ten word answer if he thinks there is time for fifty. He may be smart and see nuances, but we have been there and done that.

Russ Feingold, appearing on ABC’s This Week, offered a pleasant contrast. He gave clear, short and appealing answers to difficult questions. On Iraq, because Feingold voted against the war, he can ace the question that ties Biden, Hillary Clinton and Kerry in knots. He doesn’t have to explain anything, except maybe voting against all the Balkan war resolutions also.

He also was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. What’s more, he is able to explain that he favored most of the bill, just not the part that infringes on the privacy of normal citizens. And it didn’t sound a bit like “I really voted for it before I voted against it.” Although that’s actually what he did.