If you're wondering about the coal miner reference, recall the embarrassing end of Biden's 1987 White House bid, as reported by the New York Times.
Time Magazine summarized:
"The basic rap against Biden," explains Democratic Pollster Geoff Garin, "is that he's a candidate of style, not substance."At least he's compatible with 0bama!
Old news, maybe, but here's how political scientist Larry Sabato reflected on the 1987 incident when Biden was considering a run for the White House in 2003:
"The reason it became such an issue was that it reinforced the Biden image that already existed among the press, that he's a blowhard, a guy who talked before he thought," Sabato says. "Now, he's a little older and more experienced, but do people really change that all much after they reach adulthood? I've rarely seen anybody change that much, and I've taught thousands of college students over the years."Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 23, 2008 04:29 PM | Email This
A disconnect from his message to the American electorate? I think so...
Posted by: Rick D. on August 23, 2008 06:14 PMWhat's their campaign slogan? "Words you can believe you've heard before!"
Posted by: Obi-Wan on August 23, 2008 06:45 PMDuffie,,, grow up! I hope,LOL
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on August 23, 2008 08:05 PMI only can wonder what the 161 lobbyists working for his campaign are gonna tell him to flip flop on next... I can hardly wait!
And to think 10 years ago I may have been able to respect the man that called Jerry Faulwell, and his lunatic fake christian buddies "agents of intolerance", and worked to get some of the corporate cash out of our political system. My has Johnnie two step changed.
McCain never did tell us how many times he got laid while cheating on his unknowing crippled wife did he? I bet we may have a good idea soon....
I am sure the corporate press will never ask that question. Maybe they should ask him how he got to become an aviator, when all the "top guns" were supposed to be the "best" not the worst. Maybe he got shot down because he couldn't fly any better than he could study.
I only honor soldiers that got promoted because of their service, not because of their family connections. McCain has been living off his entitlements his whole life. Another stupid spoiled rich kid, living off his family's connections. Remind you of anyone?
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on August 23, 2008 10:32 PMBiden and Barack worked their asses off for what they have achieved in life. I commend them.
Bush and McCain have been living off their daddy's connections their whole life, and didn't even have to try, like the rest of us have to do every day.
The idea of one more rich dudes stupid brat running our country makes anyone with half a brain, and any amount of love for our nation shudder.
Think about it.
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on August 23, 2008 10:38 PMSo what's wrong with Romney?
Obama picked Biden, because Obama doesn't have that much experience.
McCain should pick Romney, because McCain is severely lacking in intelligence, character and personal morality.
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 23, 2008 11:07 PMFar too much baggage. I have to wonder why obama picked someone who was so emphatic about O not being presidential material at this time! D'oh!
Posted by: Michele on August 23, 2008 11:08 PMKinda makes you wanna go enlist don't it?
As far as honoring vets, I remember purple band aids on the floor of congress.
Some real sick folks if you ask me.
Posted by: Whaaa on August 23, 2008 11:18 PMI've just seen the new McCain ad where Biden "stands by" his words calling Obama inexperienced in no uncertain terms and then praises McCain as a guy who can run the country and he'd "be proud of". It is just to priceless for words. I giggle every time I think about it. I am as I type this.
Who says politics is boring?
It would be interesting to get All Facts Support My Confusions to check back once he sees the McCain ad. I'd be interested in what he has to say about it. Damn, there I go giggling again . . .
When introducing his running mate, Obama said, "So let me introduce to you the next president - the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden."But then so is poor old Joe
And then when it was Biden's turn to speak, the Delaware senator called the presumptive Democratic nominee "Barack America" instead of Barack Obama.
They are just so giddy with excitement they can't get their words right! ... which is sorta, kinda maybe acceptable for a teen just invited to the prom by her dream date... not so much for a wannabe president.
My FAVORITE Barry/Joe Show headline so far is
Obama Picks Cliff the Mailman...
and then Hugh updates and bumps it!
Pundits and conservatives are having way too much fun with this VP pick...especially on the eve of the Barrypalooza!
What is funny is the 20 some percent (LSD?) that still approve of the job they liar in chief has done.
Keep drinking that kool aid.
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on August 23, 2008 11:28 PMThat is what happens when you are a pandering fraud.
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on August 23, 2008 11:35 PMPoor baby.
Rob Long asks "Isn't [Biden] sort of the stupid person's idea of the smart person's candidate?" Yes, he is. But that's not fair to stupid people. Even stupid people who watched Biden embarrass himself during the Alito hearings --remember the "I hate Princeton" moment followed by the donning of the Princeton cap?-- know that Slow Joe is all tenure and no talent.
But put Biden's obvious flaws aside and ask yourself how in the world Obama decided to go with Biden, and you'll quickly realize that the Democratic nominee must have been impressed with Biden on the long campaign trail of 2007 and 2008 --even though voters weren't and even though Biden has no accomplishments of note after 36 years in the Senate. Biden talked a great game and dropped some very interesting place names --and this impressed Obama. Talking the talk has been the key to Obama's success, and in Slow Joe he found an older, far better traveled but equally prolix gas bag.
Pushed to the wall, he picked an empty suit like himself, a nice enough fellow who has done one thing well in his entire life, which is win elections in Delaware.
For Obama, it is all about politics and words, elections and poses. Slow Joe is the perfect running mate on a perfect ticket for a party betting on wind to solve the energy crisis.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is NOT the narrative that The Empty Suit/Stuffed Shirt ticket was hoping for on the eve of the great 08 barrypalooza!
LMAO!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on August 23, 2008 11:41 PMHey, I got one for ya: Biden called Barry "Barack America". What? Is the guy drunk? It is a good fit to the "57 states" gaff though. Maybe these two were made for each other.
Ha, ha, ha! I can't stand it. Joe Biden! I'll be laughing about this until after the McCain inauguration. At least he thinks Barry is "clean".
Is that from the PeeWee Herman "I know you are, but what am I" campaign handbook?
Goodnight, petulance.
LMAO!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on August 23, 2008 11:48 PMI always thought that the sloppy copy from the Neil Kinnock speech was the fault of Joe Biden's speechwriter back in 1987. It would be hard to prove that Biden knew the speech had been copied.
On the other hand, some of the references in the adapted Kinnock speech clearly did not fit Biden. Especially the coal miner ancestor part -- which was 100% true for Kinnock, and quite probably not true for any known ancestor of Biden.
I can't say that copying someone else's speech necessarily deserves to be condemned as plagiarism. Politics is different than academics. But if the speech turns out to be baloney because of the plagiarism, then the culprit will get totally burned.
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 24, 2008 12:10 AMI didn't know McCain was a lawyer...
Posted by: stewart_street on August 24, 2008 02:15 AMWhaaa @16. You obviously don't know anything about how Academy grads pick their branch of service, and how tough flight school is. I do. Daddy's connections don't help you. But go ahead and spew your ignorance, it's all you on the left know how to do.
Posted by: Obi-Wan on August 24, 2008 02:47 AMAs far as "us" on the left are concerned, let me tell you something about those on the "right" now.
The Republiconvicts could run Atilla the Hun, and Charles Manson, and they would get 40 million votes. The -R is all that matters to these lemmings. You know, the ones that think the Republiconvicts are trying to make America better for them, instead of just looting the treasury, in every way possible, and holding onto power by any means, legal or not.
Thank God the Justice Department is looking the other way full time. They are too busy doing voter suppression, and prosecuting innocent Dems anyway...
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on August 24, 2008 06:59 AMYeah, attending those expensive prep schools must have been pretty rough, right?
"...the Bush Crime Family already has. Destroying our military, and bankrupting our economy."~ few facts support my assumptions
Speaking of bankrupt, Joe Biden's net worth is minus $300,000 if you believe CNN news network. Can you tell me how a personally fiscal failure like Biden is supposed to help the US economy when he can't seem to right his own ship at home?
Pot, meet kettle.
Pope, you're always good for a laugh
Posted by: swassociates on August 24, 2008 08:20 AMAre you talking about yourself again Pope.
Face it, the people on this site know who you are and what you have NOT done in your lifetime.
So please, stop trying to impress us with your wit. (or lack of)
Sound bytes are so dishonest, the very thing you and your progressive moonbat ilk thrive on. How come you are unable to truthfully support any of your assertions ? Besides, McCain ads of Obama contradicting himself (not to mention Biden) will far and away exceed Obama's ads of McCain.
"That is what happens when you are a pandering fraud."
We all know that describes you, but you are so deranged and twisted that for all we know, you could be a minion of George Soros who has donated millions to the Nobama campaign. I am not a Bush supporter, but I support traditional America and fascist liars such as you clog up blogs with your flatulence. Stick your rhetoric where the sun don't shine, punk !
Posted by: KS on August 24, 2008 09:25 AMWhat would you know about the above traits Richard? Last time I checked there was a "no contact" order against you from ex-girlfriends dumb enough to date you. Stalking laws were introduced because of human offal like you.
Posted by: Rick D. on August 24, 2008 10:24 AMRecently in another thread long sice passed you were slinging your typical mud, this time about Mcain, anger and boxing.
It turns out that your boy barry has his own little boxing history, one born not of anger appropriately channelled but one of humiliation and boo hoo daddy, they picked on me:
The boxing gloves were new, and smelled of leather. It was the mid-1960s, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Barack Obama had come home the day before with what he recalled as "an egg-sized lump" on the side of his head, the result of a fight with a boy who had stolen a friend's soccer ball and then hit Obama with a rock. Wounded but not bleeding, a humiliated Obama found his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, in their yard, tending to the chrome on a beloved motorcycle. The boy whined a bit--"It wasn't fair"--and Soetoro said little. Now, 24 hours later, the stepfather appeared with two sets of boxing gloves, one for himself and one for Obama. "The first thing to remember is how to protect yourself," Soetoro said as they began to spar. "Keep your hands up," he ordered, circling the boy. "You want to keep moving, but always stay low--don't give them a target." Obama bobbed and weaved, learning to throw punches; at one point in the half-hour lesson, he let his defenses down, and paid for it. "I felt a hard knock to the jaw, and looked up at Soetoro's sweating face," Obama recalled. "Pay attention," Soetoro instructed.
I might suggest surrealist, the next time you are tempted with mud pies you shove them down your own piehole, lest they come back and hit you in the ass.
Holy crap... could you actually mix any more metaphors in there?
@31: Speaking of bankrupt, Joe Biden's net worth is minus $300,000 if you believe CNN news network. Can you tell me how a personally fiscal failure like Biden is supposed to help the US economy when he can't seem to right his own ship at home?
Yes, we should all follow McCain's approach to getting our fiscal house in order.
Of course, I don't think that there are one hundred million beer heiresses out there willing to marry us...
Posted by: demo kid on August 24, 2008 12:46 PM"Now, he's a little older and more experienced, but do people really change that all much after they reach adulthood? I've rarely seen anybody change that much, and I've taught thousands of college students over the years."
Does that apply to McCain as well? Does that mean that he's still the quick-tempered carousing philanderer he was thirty years ago?
Posted by: demo kid on August 24, 2008 12:49 PMWho in the hell cares ? It happened in 1987 and what is done is done and the end result is that Biden went nowhere in his first bid for president just as was the case this year. Just another irrelevant attempt intended to take our eyes off of the significant issues. As if the manipulative mainstream media hasn't done this enough already and are doing us a disservice. Basic rule to follow: Whoever they are for, I will vote against.
Posted by: KS on August 24, 2008 01:30 PMThe only thing worse for Obama than believing his own hype is to underestimate McCain's wherewithal. Obama might move oceans but America wants a President on solid ground. McCain didn't begin serving a cause greater than himself last weekend. It is what he was raised to believe and it is what carried him through both as a POW and a politician. McCain has been knocked down in both arenas and has always found a way to get back up. Oh yes, McCain knows exactly what he is up against. McCain is up against a prima donna who believes sitting down in the Oval Office is an entitlement. And yes, Obama could very well win. Yet Obama cannot comprehend that then he has committed the cardinal sin of underestimating a worthy opponent. McCain hasn't underestimated Obama for a second. He's been around long enough to know when he is the underdog in a fight. He knows Obama is quite capable of getting what he wants. He also knows that Obama is already acting like he has won the race thus erasing the fine line between confidence and cockiness. So long as Obama speaks with such nugacity he will spend a lot of time beginning the first Wednesday of November wondering why he could not gain the trust of the American people.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on August 24, 2008 02:35 PM
THe choice of Biden makes it pretty clear to me that the clinton machinery, supportes, and voters will make sure she is the heads up nominee in 2012.
The democrat party will never be so devided as in this year.
Bye Bye Biden, hello McCain, for at least one term.
Posted by: GS on August 24, 2008 03:49 PMThe hubris of Obama and his acolytes (Facts, are you listening?) is beyond measure.
McCain, was shot down in Vietnam. After fishing him from a lake with a broken leg and both arms, they crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and then they bayoneted him. They then imprisoned him for 5 years in squalid conditions, hanging him by his arms repeatedly and beating him for years every two days for not signing a bogus "confession". He also spent two years of his multi-year captivity in solitary confinement and the preceding is the short version of what happened to him over there.
Given this experience, I'm pretty secure in the knowledge that McCain knows what he's up against with Obama: Not much.
1. He likes immigrants (Soft on Immigration)
2. He does not want to torture prisoners (Soft on Terror)
3. He dumped is disfigured wife (Soft on Family Values)
4. Keating five (Corrupt)
5. Mccain Feingold (Against upholding the Constitution)
6. Criticized Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in war time (Soft on Iraq)
As far as the wife thing goes, I don't know your age, but I lived through the Nam era as a teenager and with a draft number low enough (45) to get invited to be drafted. I know the harm the war did to the men in Nam and the women they left behind. I know the difficulty the Nam vet had when he returned. I don't condone what happened but these men and these wives suffered. Many of the vets suffer to this day from the effects of the war and from the treatment they received from from the lily white liberals. So, I am not buying into that wife thing after what they went through and what they suffered. Nor should you.
I still cry when guys like you remind me of the tragic times we went through.
Today, I have a close acquaintenance who was quite touched when they opened the Nam Memorial in Olympia. He goes down there every year.
I haveVietnamese friends who saw their loved ones shot down in the streets as the American troops fled. They have survived and some have prospered in this country.
No, Mr. Cato, you are barking up the wrong tree if you compare male-female relations back then to those of today.
Posted by: swatter on August 25, 2008 02:56 PMYeah, he ditched his old-not-so-good wife to marry the Paris Hilton of his day, certainly says a lot after she waited stateside day after day praying his release. On top of that she was in a pretty traumatic car accident while he was serving time in Hanoi Hilton, no "damaged goods" for John McCain, decided to go for the spoiled trophy wife.
Class act that John McCain.
who saw their loved ones shot down in the streets
I have neighbors with stories like that, they watched their friends and neighbors hacked to death with machetes because they belonged to the wrong tribe or worshiped the wrong god(s). Difference is no American politician gave a damn about their poor African country from which they hailed.
Heck I know a guy who sells shoes at Nordys was a portable radio operator during the Iran-Iraq conflict. He watched his unit commanders head get split open like a watermelon from some Iraqi soldiers bullet. He came to the US to escape all that only to be investigated by FBI after 9/11 because he's a practicing Muslim.
After all, Reagan tried it and it didn't work after a couple of years.
McCain's immigration bill looked like amnesty, Conservatives on this board called it amnesty, must have been amnesty. Yet you still consider him a Conservative. The McCain/Lieberman ticket will be the icing on the cake.
Sounds like Mr. Cato would be the first in line to spit at the troops. Or maybe that is his SP personna. I doubt he talks that way to the one soldier he says he knows.
Posted by: swatter on August 26, 2008 07:40 AM