perfidy

Joe Biden was born a poor black sharecropper in Scranton, PA. From an early age, little Joe made a name for himself by copying the work of others. This talent served him well until, in the 1988 presidential campaign, he was caught on tape repeating nearly verbatim a speech written by British Labor Party magnate Neil Kinnock. Along with some shenanigans from his law school days, wrapped up in a vicious little ad package by his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis, Biden’s proclivity for plagiarism dropped him from the race.

In the intervening twenty years, Joe Biden has remained a long serving senator from an inconsequential state. He has slowly moved his way into the leadership of the Senate, and gained a reputation for loving the sound of his own voice. That Joe should be marked, even among other politicians for this quality is a stunning achievement. Like a professional hockey team saying, yeah, but that guy really likes to skate.

Joe Biden once took over twelve minutes to ask a question of Supreme Court nominee Alito. A five minute speech can last as long as a half hour – as Barrack Obama found to his dismay. He can take five minutes just to say hello. As Barrack Obama also discovered, Joe Biden will keep talking when a wiser man would stop. Biden, in describing his competitors, made this frighteningly stupid remark about Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

As many noted during the plagiarism flap two decades ago, it’s not so much that he said something that could be interpreted as racist, or that he gave a speech that was danger close to one given by a British politician. It’s the stupidity that it implies. Decades of political experience should, one would hope, instruct the candidate to avoid these mistakes. That it has not is worrisome at best.

About Joe Biden’s anti-Coolidgeness, columnist Richard Cohen had this to say:

“The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden…

The tragedy is that Biden, who is running for president, is a much better man and senator than these accounts would suggest. But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency. It is his version of corruption, of alcoholism, of a fierce temper or vile views -- all the sorts of things that have crippled candidates in the past. It is, though, an innocent thing, as good-humored as the man and of no real policy consequence. It will merely stunt him politically.”

Not knowing when to shut up is a central indicator of foolishness, vanity, or cluelessness. Or all of these things. More than almost any of our 100 senators, Joe Biden does not know when to stop flapping his mouth.

Now it is early in the campaign, but I fear that like many other candidates doomed in the past to fall by the wayside, Joe Biden has no real reason to be President. This is not to say that the man is possessed of an overreaching ambition, not at all. Joe Biden is the long service bureaucratic placeholder who, after thirty years of service wants his GS-14 and reserved parking place. And like that retired in place civil servant, there is no good reason for that promotion save for seniority and a species of political inertia. In the words of the political satire, Happy Gilmore, “It’s Shooter’s turn.”

I have looked at Joe’s campaign website. There are any number of statements that can be interpreted with a generous eye as indicative of a coherent policy. But I’m not feeling generous. Joe Biden believes that there is a global economy, and that America has a role in it. Joe Biden believes that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, must take a leadership role in limiting or eliminating every factor that has made us the most powerful nation in the world.

There is a curious circularity to his policy positions as described on his website. For “Jobs” the key factors are energy policy and health care. For “Health Care” its jobs, econmy and using electronic records in hospitals. For “Energy” Joe Biden believes that energy policy is the center of both foreign and economic policy. Since all the oil is under where crazy people live, we should do without and invest in solar cars. And for “Climate Change” we should do without, invest in solar cars, and trade not emitting greenhouse gases.

Though energy is the center of our foreign policy, Joe Biden believes that NATO should impose a “No-Fly” zone over Darfur. He is particularly bold in calling for this even if the Sudanese don’t approve.

In short, what we the electorate have in Joe Biden is a time-serving motor mouth with a nice haircut. The next logical step in Joe Biden’s public service career is to move to the White House. However, Joe Biden has never held any sort of executive power beyond managing his Senatorial staff. Joe Biden has never exhibited any evidence of mastery of any complicated (even nuanced) policy matter. And most important to us, he has never demonstrated the ability or desire to ever shut the fuck up.