Biden In? Bring on the Whole Team!

Hapless Joes. They're problematic in American politics, although Joe DiMaggio might have made it Big Time.

Joe McCarthy had no shame or not enough of it, and speaking of the Red Scare, Joe Lieberman sure enough turned Red in a Blue state. We've now had enough of him (rumor has it he may support a red candidate in '08, ouch). Joe, not so good to not know you, but here we go again with another suavely pompous windbag, Joe Biden of decidedly marginal Delaware. Mr. Biden ran years ago, as a young man, perhaps before his time. He got the young and brash ax they gave a certain Mr. Gore the first time he ran, at the age of 39, ALSO in 1988. (Maybe the young guns were thinking that, on the heels of Reagan, youth would count for a lot more than it did.)

Now, a more experienced yet no more compelling orator Biden is running much later in his career, perhaps after his time. But I'd say Joe Biden, even with his padded resume, doesn't really have a time to be president.

And I think he clearly knows it.

Biden repeatedly sites his experience as his trump card, but hasn't the 64 year old senator noticed that we're still floundering in the post-Reagan era, ever more camera-crazed, where experience counts for very little and an "outsider's" amiability counts for nearly everything? We sure don't want chortling bad boy Bush anymore. But we don't really want his dad back, either. We don't want Mr. Smith in Washington, naive and green, and we don't want some ancient turd face or out of touch patriarch. We want Martin Sheen. We want Joe DiMaggio. We want Shane.

I think Biden is running for the same reason a few other candidates are running: to be asked to serve in the next president's Cabinet. The way to do that is to raise a few tens of millions of dollars, a modest war chest, and go for the gray-haired "experience counts" voters in a few primaries. Biden won't even have to make it to the primaries to raise his profile enough for this "run" to be worth his while. But is it worth our while?

What these "also ran" candidates are betting on is not their winning but on a Democrat winning. That would put them in play for Cabinet and major diplomatic posts. Joe's been hanging around Delaware and Washington for plenty of years. He wants some field duty.

So it's not President Biden we're even needing to consider here, it's Secretary Biden.

But Joe, don't shoot for Secretary of State. I predict that if a Democrat wins the White House, Al Gore will have that post wrapped up. Payback time.