Those liberal hippies would never take a one phrase quote and turn it into a headline that would benefit the GOP, regardless of what the entire subtext was of the conversation...

I guess Joe really doesn't want to be VP...or Secretary of anything for that matter.

Besides that statement, Joe Biden was pretty good.  

He should have known better.

I was disappointed in Biden. I realize he was put somewhat on the defensive by the questions but he could have done better. We need a VP candidate who can tear these wingnuts a new one.

seems to not have a mental or vocal "buffer zone". He often says things without filtering them through the "buffer" that most people have.

and I did not want to make a diary out of this.

I simply want peoples reactions on the following story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/pol itics/23ethanol.html

Is this politics as usual? I feel it is.

Is it a good or a bad thing? If we are looking for "change" then I would say it is a bad thing.

if it wasn't for his gaffes, he make a great veep.  sigh

I disagree. Biden was cutting the BS about Obama opting out and gave a much better explanation of why it made sense for him to do it than Obama's statement. Of course if you're a candidate's surrogate you don't want to sound better than the guy you are standing in for, but Obama's explanation justfying a correct move was so lame, Joe gets kudos from me for it.

On McLaughlin, Pat Buchanan correctly said that the problem Obama faces with opting out won't come with the decision itself; but with his weak argument for it.

Biden co-sponsored the first public financing bill in the 1970s. This issue is close to his heart.

From what I have heard, he was a pretty strong advocate during the rest of the interview, so I would cut him slack on this.

In fact, Biden's appearance was praised by many in this thread yesterday at DKos:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6 /22/115929/372/847/540215

"Biden Drank Graham's Milkshake: Veep Audition?"

It should be added that on foreign policy, Biden can go for throats of Republicans better than anybody.

I wonder about this. Now I have always kind of envied the repugs for their loyalty, but we are now perhaps seeing the earthquake and after shocks in the republican party caused by this strategy. No one agrees all of the time. And if you try to run a party this way, ultimately the minority will get really pissed, and they will bolt. We Democrats have seen these kind of  fractures in our party for as long as I can remember and IMHO, allowed the repugs to stage a coup over the last 14 years. A coup that has (hopefully)ended with the only president of the United States of America that was never actually elected by the people.

My question is can we Democrats figure out how to deal with dissent in our party without fracturing? I actually think dissention is one of our strengths, but how do we translate this to success in the political sphere?

I thought Joe was great and would have been the best choice for President.  Not everyone has had a drink from the Obama kool aid cup.

Hopefully, Clueless Joe has forfeited his role as Obama spokesman. Which would be a sore blow for him since he loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice.

than Lindsey Graham did. Voters are cynical today, and are more impressed by someone who tells it straight, than by the surrogate who just supports their candidate 100% down the line.

Bottom line, Obama cut corners on this one and broke his word....and is getting pounded by the likes of Mark Shields, David Brooks, Russ Feingold, and so on. In view of that, was Biden just going to sit there and say that he didn't break his word??? Instead, he acknowledged it, and then moved on to give a spirited defense of Obama. As opposed to Graham, who just sat there like a potted plant, giving the GOP talking points that most people had already heard on twenty other cable outlets.

Via Atrios, Francis Wilkinson hit the nail on the head in the NYT

Ever since Watergate, the ideal of campaign finance reform has been to replace a system fueled by special interests and big money with either full public financing or a system of civic-minded small donors. The former is abhorred by much of the public while the latter looks remarkably like barackobama.com. In effect, the Obama campaign has come closer to achieving the ideals of campaign finance reform than 30-plus years of regulation. To condemn the campaign's departure from the system is to elevate rules over the principle that gave birth to the rules in the first place.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2 008/06/20/bring-it-on/

That's what Biden is doing. He can't see the forest for the trees. And being one of the great Green Room darlings of the Broderist class, he's just the guy to make the argument.

Nothing I can add, would rec if this was a diary.

The problem is that Biden (nor Williams) were being even-handed.  Unless I missed it (while I was yelling at the screen), they didn't mention the McCain-FEC flap.

Biden was being "fair" in admitting that Obama changed his strategy after getting more than a million donors, but it's not dirty politics to point out utter inconsistency of the opponent in the same general area.  I thought Williams might offer it up, but instead he went to the off-shore oil drilling.

Ugh, nice grammar in that first sentence, Bob.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) would say "$4 gas is the Democrats fault, they block drilling, etc. etc.". Edward Markey (D-MA), who looked like he just got out of bed, never, not once, disputed it.  He gave good answers (when George would let him speak), but then Hutchison would babble about a bi-partisan solution and then go into how it was the Democrats fault over and over.  And the few times Markey would start to make a good point, she interrupted. Columbia Univ. Earth Institute director. Jeffrey Sachs did a good job of laying out the failure of Bush to have any plan at all.  The problem in the end was that Markley let Hutchison blame Democrats and failed to challenge her on it.  The Republican talking point all week was that gas and oil price would not be high if the Democrats "had not blocked drilling" and there was no concerted effort from Obama or the Democrats to rebut it and lay the blame where it belonged.

We can do without the language referring to "drama queen Lindsey Graham".  The sentence works just as well without it, and avoids the unnecessary gutter politics.  Let the SC GOP engage in that wallowing, if they wish.

Good God, how can ANYONE be surprised by Biden saying something stupid.  This recent effort to present him as someone with gravitas is just stupid.  Biden is a self-centered blowbag.

just plain unacceptable.  It supports rumors about Graham's sexuality in the sneakiest, "that's not what I meant!" manner.  If you have evidence that he's gay and want to out him because of his anti-gay voting record, go ahead.  If you can't support the allegation with evidence, please--stop the bullshit.