"Clean and articulate": Biden passes muster
YES, a first-ever and thus unique Saturday post on A Better Nation! Must be big news! And according to an e-mail I got at 4:15 AM, it is, well, good news at least.
So it's Joe Biden for VP, and what a relief. There is only one person who would have better for the job, Al Gore, and apparently he didn't make himself available. I do think that if Gore had accepted, the Obama/Gore ticket would have won by a landslide.
The Obama/Biden ticket will be more of a squeaker, but hey, no terrible baggage here, and that's where my take comes in.
I was a fan of Biden's twenty years ago, when he first ran for president. Back then, his tan was even better, and he had a dashing flair (his famous or infamous loquaciousness) that the tight-faced, stolid Dukakis lacked. Like Bill Clinton, he's gone on too long, but the import of higher office (that and speech writers) can fix that.
We'll probably enjoy his mix of gravitas and good cheer. Americans will see that the guy likes his job, something neither McCain nor any of his cohorts exhibit. Come to think of it, perhaps Gore would have still been too stiff, too officious and have had too much baggage to get down and grab the hearts, minds and votes of the base.
One gaff keeps coming up: Biden's comment last year that Obama is "clean and articulate." Perhaps you can draw racial overtones from this, as so many have, but consider this: Clean can mean 'no abominable ties to churches, thugs, corporations, controversy, mistresses, etc., etc.' And articulate: Some in the Senate are articulate, and some are not. This is not a racial slur, it seems to me, but a compliment. Obama is well-spoken. That's what that means. Take it at face value. I think Obama himself did.
And thus Joe gets a big chair at the table. Welcome, Joe!
posted by Lawrence @ 11:28 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi Lawrence,
My name is Marta and I am an administrator of the site FaithfulDemocrats.com Would you be interested in sending us your e-mail address for future information sharing purposes? Thanks!
Hi Marta, though I adhere closely to some of the basic tenets of each, I am not a member of the Christian community nor am I a consistent Democrat. I am more liberal than the Democratic platform. I am, a la Kurt Vonnegut, a liberal humanist, a secular socialist.
Take care, Lawrence
Joe let it slip a week or so after he was chosen that even thought Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice, politically, and by that I hope he means she would have secured the election more easily. I might agree with that. But in the long run, I think the Biden choice is the best for an Obama administration. Besides his infamous mouth, he brings very little extraneous and distracting baggage to the ticket and to the team.
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