BIDEN’S COMMENTS ARE THE WORDS OF A MAN WHO SUFFERS FROM THE ANCIENT DISORDER COMMON AMONG THOSE ON LABOR IN THE POLITICAL VINEYARDS—DIARRHEA OF THE MOUTH AND CONSTIPATION OF THE BRAIN.
“Watch, We're Gonna Have An International Crisis, A Generated Crisis, To Test The Mettle Of This Guy." (Matthew Jaffe, "Biden To Supporters: 'Gird Your Loins,' For The Next President 'It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables,'" ABC's "Political Radar" Blog, blogs.abcnews.com, 10/20/08)
When I heard what Joe Biden allegedly said in the statement above, I felt like shouting the infamous words of Jay Leno to actor Hugh Grant when the British actor was a guest on The Tonight Show after he was arrested for having oral sex with a prostitute in his car while parked along a Hollywood Street. “What in the hell were you thinking?” Leno asked as Grant walked onto the stage!
If Joe Biden said what he is reported to have said, he has done a terrible disservice to Barack Obama and to the Democratic Party. This Senator from Delaware has been in the Senate since he was 30 years old. He understands politics as well as anybody and yet since first entering the Senate he has consistently made irresponsible statements, and from time to time, absolutely false statements.
For example, recently he told an interviewer that during the great depression, FDR frequently took to the television in what became known has his "fireside chats" to calm the fears of the American public that were provoked by the stock market crash. The problem here is that FDR was not the president when the stock market crash took place and televison was yet to be invented.
Barack Obama, in an attempt to sooth the anger that many Democrats felt toward Biden after the comments were extensively disseminated, told a news conference that the Delaware Senator was prone to “rhetorical flourishes’ from time to time. The candidate for the presidency on the Democratic ticket attempted to rationalize the Biden blunder.
The predicament that Biden hoisted to the masthead of newspapers across the country and captions of television news programs with his statement is the persistent Republican charge that Obama is not ready to be president. This indictment was made by Obama’s opposition during the Democratic primaries, but more powerfully in the general election campaign by both McCain and Palin.
To some degree with the selection of Governor Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, McCain blunted the accusation by choosing someone with much less national experience than Obama has. More importantly, Obama has the intelligence, the judgment and the calm reaction to crises.
People forget that Obama has precisely the same experience that Abraham Lincoln had when he was elected president on the threshold of the Civil War. To repeat my favorite phrase, “There nothing more important that experience, unless, of course, it is pure talent.”
Biden now has re-fueled the flames and immediately after Biden’s remarks landed on the air waves, McCain and Palin vaulted on it like a hungry fox in pursuit of a rabbit for his dinner.
I do not know what Joe Biden’s trouble is, but his mouth obviously begins to operate before his brain is warmed up. He speaks before he thinks.
It is not a new problem. He is known on Capital Hill for having a big mouth and talking too long and saying too much about many subjects that do not warrant the words or the time he gives them.
I was livid. I could not believe that this man who has been in the political arena for as long as he has could make such an unwise blunder in the final days of a close race for the presidency.
Obama called a meeting of his national security advisors to lessen the impact of the brutal criticism McCain’s campaign has begun to launch. With Palin on one side and McCain on the other, just when Obama was beginning to pull away from McCain in the polls, Biden opens his big mouth and dumped a whole truck load of doubt on the minds of those who are undecided about Obama’s preparedness to be the president of the United States in a time of crisis.
What was his motive? Why would this experience politician make such a devastatingly damaging statement in the closing hours of the campaign. I guess he deserves the benefit of the doubt. But that benefit will not accrue to Senator Biden for some time after the election and will only accrue if Obama is victorious on November 4, 2008.
9:22:11 AM 
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