Lexington on Biden - Week 1

Some interesting observations in this column

• perfect example of a lunch-bucket Democrat made good
• ..bizarre act of plagiarism doomed 1987 presidential hopes
  
• ..(pro-choice) Roman Catholic who instinctively understands... anxieties that drove his fellow Papists to embrace Reagan in the 1980s, and makes them wary of Obama
• chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

Next week, the story will certainly be on Palin.


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Joe Biden brings both strengths and weaknesses to the Democratic ticket

Illustration by KAL

HIS first run for the presidency collapsed, in 1987, after a bizarre act of plagiarism. Bizarre because Joe Biden not only borrowed the words of another politician, Neil Kinnock, the leader of the British Labour Party. That is par for the course in modern politics. He borrowed his life-story, too. He claimed that he was the first Biden to go to university and that his ancestors had worked down a coal mine, both untrue. The only thing he did not claim was to be Welsh.

This was doubly damaging because Mr Biden, like the man whose identity he tried to purloin, is a notorious wind-bag. He loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice. And when he talks the sentences and paragraphs tumble over each other with no obvious end in sight. Members of the audience just have to cross their fingers and hope.

But Barack Obama’s choice of Mr Biden as his running mate has nevertheless been greeted with widespread applause—and not just from loyal Democrats. The senior senator for Delaware not only brings white hair to the Democratic ticket. He also brings a (true) personal story that compliments Mr Obama’s autobiography. Mr Obama’s rally in Springfield, Illinois, on August 23rd, where he introduced his new running mate to the world, was his best performance for some time.

Mr Biden is a perfect example of a lunch-bucket Democrat made good. His father was born polo-playing rich but ended up poor, thanks to a series of bad investments. Young Joe grew up in a solid but struggling working-class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania, before moving to Wilmington, Delaware. He worked his way through college and made it to the Senate by the age of 29.

He remains popular in his native Pennsylvania, one of America’s largest swing states. He is a (pro-choice) Roman Catholic who instinctively understands the cultural anxieties that drove his fellow Papists to embrace Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and continue to make them wary of Mr Obama. He is also one of the poorest members of the Senate, an institution which is threatening to revert to its Gilded Age status as a millionaires’ club. He endured an unspeakable personal tragedy, shortly after his first run for the Senate in 1972, when his wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver. He travels home to his family in Delaware every day on Amtrak, and lives in a surprisingly modest house. All this makes him appealing to Obama-wary working-class voters.

Mr Biden is one of the most experienced foreign-policy hands in Washington. He has been the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2007, with a particular interest in eastern Europe, and is on first-name terms with many foreign politicians. A fortnight ago Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, invited him to visit his embattled country. He is also “a happy warrior”—a man who relishes the pig-wrestling side of politics, and can deliver a killer punch without seeming malicious.

This is a perfect compliment to Mr Obama’s biggest weaknesses, his wafer-thin résumé on foreign affairs. It will stand him in good stead in the vice-presidential debate, which could prove surprisingly important in a close race. The fact that he is a good friend of John McCain—the two men have served together in the Senate for two decades—could also help the Democrats to wrong-foot their opponent.

Mr Biden’s strengths extend beyond the campaign trail. Dick Cheney is hardly a name to conjure with in Democratic circles. But Mr Biden brings some of the same qualities to the Democratic ticket that Mr Cheney brought to the Republican one in 2000. At 65, he has no choice but to sublimate his personal political ambitions into those of his boss; and, as an old Washington hand, he knows how to get things done. Mr Obama’s supporters seem to believe that all they need to do is huff and puff and the old order in Washington will come tumbling down. Mr Biden understands that, in order to achieve results, you need to know how to manage committees and flatter power-brokers.

Mouth trouble

The Republicans have wasted no time in charging that Mr Biden undercuts his boss’s message of “change”. But this is transparently self-serving. If Mr Obama had picked a less experienced man—Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, another swing state, for example—they would be mocking the Democratic ticket as lightweight. Still, the man who tried to borrow Mr Kinnock’s biography has worrying weaknesses.

The most obvious, of course, is his mouth. The Republicans have already produced a video of Mr Biden arguing that Mr Obama is too inexperienced for the top job, and proclaiming that he would “be honoured to run with or against” Mr McCain. Mr Biden once described Mr Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”. There will be plenty more where that came from.

A second problem is that his judgment in his major area of expertise, foreign policy, has proved up and down. He argued that Iraq should be partitioned, into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish regions, and stuck to his harebrained scheme long after it had been debunked both by American military commanders and by Iraqi politicians. Like Mr Obama, he bet against the success of the “surge”. All grist to the Republican mill.

Mr Biden’s biggest problem, however, is that he is not Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton won 18m votes in the Democratic primary; Mr Biden dropped out after coming fifth in the Iowa caucuses. Mr Obama’s advisers have whispered that the reason Mrs Clinton was not considered for the vice-presidency is that she is a Washington insider who voted in favour of the Iraq war. But Mr Biden is also a Washington insider who voted in favour of the Iraq war. Far from bringing Mrs Clinton’s supporters back into the fold, Mr Biden’s elevation may look like just another snub.

Copyright © 2008 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

One more....

One more....

Some cartoons forwarded to me labeled "for slightly twisted minds"

Peggy's Column

Interesting observations.


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August 15, 2008

DECLARATIONS By PEGGY NOONAN

The End of Placeness The end of placeness is one of the features of the campaign. I do not like it. Pretend you are not a political sophisticate and regular watcher of the presidential race as it unfolds on all media platforms. Pretend, that is, that you are normal. AP Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. OK, quick, close your eyes. Where is Barack Obama from? He's from Young. He's from the town of Smooth in the state of Well Educated. He's from TV. John McCain? He's from Military. He's from Vietnam Township in the Sunbelt state. Chicago? That's where Mr. Obama wound up. Modern but Midwestern: a perfect place to begin what might become a national career. Arizona? That's where Mr. McCain settled, a perfect place from which to launch a more or less conservative career in the 1980s. Neither man has or gives a strong sense of place in the sense that American politicians almost always have, since Mr. Jefferson of Virginia, and Abe Lincoln of Illinois, and FDR of New York, and JFK of Massachusetts. Even Bill Clinton was from a town called Hope, in Arkansas, even if Hope was really Hot Springs. And in spite of his New England pedigree, George W. Bush was a Texan, as was, vividly, LBJ. Messrs. Obama and McCain are not from a place, but from an experience. Mr. McCain of course was a Navy brat. He bounced around, as members of the families of our military must, and wound up for a time in the suburbs of Washington. Mr. Obama's mother was somewhat itinerant, in search of different climes. He was born in Hawaii, which Americans on the continent don't experience so much as a state as a destination, a place of physical beauty and singular culture. You go there to escape and enjoy. Then his great circling commenced: Indonesia, back to Hawaii, on to the western coast of America, then to the eastern coast, New York and Cambridge. He circled the continent, entering it, if you will, in Chicago, where he settled in his 30s. The lack of placeness with both candidates contributes to a sense of their disjointedness, their floatingness. I was talking recently with a journalist who's a podcaster. I often watch him in conversation on the Internet. I told him I'm always struck that he seems to be speaking from No Place, with some background of beige wall that could exist anywhere. He leans in and out of focus. It gives a sense of weightlessness. He's like an astronaut floating without a helmet. That's a little what both candidates are like to me. Mr. Obama hails from Chicago, but no one would confuse him with Chicagoans like Richard Daley or Dan Rostenkowski, or Harold Washington. "There is something colorless and odorless about him," says a friend. "like an inert gas." And Mr. McCain, in his experience, history and genes, is definitely military, and could easily come from Indiana or South Carolina or California, and could easily speak of upholding the values of those places. What are the political implications of candidates seeming unconnected to regional roots, or being shorn of them? I suppose the question first surfaced in 2000, when Al Gore won the national popular vote and lost Tennessee, his home state. But he hadn't ever really seemed of Tennessee. He was born and grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a senator. That was his formative experience. They liked him better in New York and California than down South. They like Mr. Obama in Illinois, but he hasn't locked up neighboring Michigan, just as Mr. McCain has strong support in Arizona but still lags in Colorado and New Mexico. On a policy level, the end of placeness may have implications. It may, for instance, lead a president to more easily oppose pork-barrel spending. If you're not quite from anywhere, you'll be slower to build a bridge to nowhere. If you don't feel the constant tug of Back Home—if it is your natural habit to think of the nation not first in specific and concrete terms but in abstract ones—then you might wind up less preoccupied by the needs and demands of the people Back Home. Mr. McCain is already a scourge of pork. Mr. Obama? Not clear. One doesn't sense any regional tug on his policy. All this is part of a national story that wasn't new even a quarter century ago. Americans move. They like moving. Got a lot of problems? The answer may be geographical relocation. New problem in the new place? GTT. Gone to Texas. It's in us. And yet. I was at a gathering a few weeks ago for an aged Southern sage, a politico with an accent so thick you have to lean close and concentrate to understand every word, so thick, as they used to say, you could pour it on pancakes. Most of the people there were from the South, different ages and generations but Southerners—the men grounded and courteous in a certain way, the women sleeveless and sexy in a certain way. There was a lot of singing and toasting and drinking, and this was the thing: Even as an outsider, you knew them. They were Mississippi Delta people—Mizz-izz-DEHLT people—and the sense of placeness they brought into the room with them was sweet to me. It allowed you to know them, in the same way that at a gathering of, say, Irish Catholics from the suburbs of Boston, you would be able to know them, pick up who they are, with your American antennae. You grow up, move on, and bring the Delta with you, but as each generation passes, the Delta disappears, as in time the ward and the parish disappear. I miss the old geographical vividness. But we are national now, and in a world so global that at the Olympics, when someone wins, wherever he is from, whatever nation or culture, he makes the same movements with his arms and face to mark his victory. South Korea's Park Tae-hwan moves just like Michael Phelps, with the "Yes!" and the arms shooting upward and the fists. This must be good. Why does it feel like a leveling? Like a squashing and squeezing down of the particular, local and authentic. * * * I end with a thought on the upcoming announcements of vice presidential picks. Major props to both campaigns for keeping it tight, who it's going to be, for by now they should know and have, please God, fully vetted him or her. On the Democrats, who are up first, I firmly announce I like every name floated so far, for different reasons (Joe Biden offers experience and growth; Evan Bayh seems by nature moderate; Sam Nunn is that rare thing, a serious man whom all see as a serious man.) But part of me tugs for Tim Kaine of Virginia, because he has a wonderful American Man haircut, not the cut of the man in first but the guy in coach who may be the air marshal. He looks like he goes once every 10 days to Jimmy Hoffa's barber and says, "Gimme a full Detroit." Detroit: that's a place. URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121874344365941765.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion (2) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=3716

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

John Edwards' indiscretion puts Georgia on our minds

A funny column by Gene Owens.


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John Edwards' indiscretion puts Georgia on our minds

By Gene Owens

I'm been looking for an excuse not to write about John Edwards, whose political career is in remission now that he has admitted that he really did have sex with that woman while not fathering her child.

Thank goodness, the Kremlin has provided me with an excuse. It has invaded the sovereign state of Georgia, which has the United States government in a bind because, although it opposes Russian aggression, it was guilty of the same thing back in 1865.

You all remember the rapacity of one William Tecumseh Sherman, who laid waste the Georgia countryside, leaving Tara in ruins but sparing Tbilisi. Then he doubled back into South Carolina where he promised that he wouldn't burn Columbia. Nobody is accusing him of anything, but the city did go up in smoke, leaving the Palmetto State with a keen sense of distrust. Its legislature promptly enacted the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

But that was 143 years ago. Now it's the Russians, not the Yankees, who are invading Georgia. It has something to do with a dispute over a place called South Ossetia, which I gather is somewhere near St. Petersburg, which is what Leningrad became after it moved to Tampa Bay. The dispute also involves Abkhazia, who I think is a football player from New Jersey who was coveted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but drafted by the Atlanta Falcons. All this information is coming from the Carl Rove Center for Media Accuracy.

Anyhow, the Russians felt like South Ossetia and Abkhazia were worth fighting for. I'm assuming that the Atlanta Braves are contemplating an evacuation, possibly to New Orleans. The Falcons are staying put, hoping that Michael Vick will be able to put together a pack of dogs that will keep the invaders at bay.

Being invaded is not a new experience for Georgia. The Yankee incursion of 1865 is perhaps best known because it was hyped by the movie "Gone With the Wind." But, truth to tell, the state has experienced a biennial invasion from its northern neighbor, Tennessee, whose Volunteers have been known to invade Georgia, often with devastating effect. Fortunately, they penetrate no farther than Athens, and the carnage is usually confined to a 100-yard strip between the hedges at Sanford Stadium.

We Bulldog fans are hoping that the nastiness between Russia and Georgia will be over and done with by Oct. 11, when the Volunteers ford the Tennessee River en route to Athens. We don't want to have to contend with Vladimir Putin and Phillip Fulmer at one and the same time.

The response of President George Bush is encouraging. He has made it clear that he will not tolerate a Russian presence in Georgia.

"We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops," he said. "We call for an end of the Russian bombings." I'm pretty sure that will stop the Russians before the fateful October date.

I haven't heard from former President Jimmy Carter on the subject. At last report, he was nailing shingles on the roof of a home for the needy and couldn't come down for a Russian invasion of his home state. Besides, he probably figured that Fort Benning had enough helicopters to take care of the situation.

The Russian incursion has been roundly condemned by somebody named Mikheil Saakashvili, whom I believe to be a congressman from Atlanta. He says Russia has no business interfering with the affairs of a sovereign state, which is precisely the argument made by Governor Marvin Griffin back when Earl Warren was trying to dictate educational policies in Georgia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov accused Georgia of engaging in "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, which is not true. So far as I can determine, the last instance of ethnic cleansing in Georgia was back during the 1980s, when the liberal media reported that Forsyth County up there near Atlanta was 100 percent white. As a result of the ethnic cleansing that took place after that, the 2000 census showed that only 95.5 percent of the people were white. I suspect that South Ossetia can put up similar numbers. The only ethnic cleansing Georgia is interested in now is to clear out all those Florida Gator fans from the part of the state just north of Jacksonville; the Florida State Seminole partisans from the area just north of the Panhandle and the Auburn Tiger fans from the Columbus area.

The Russians have accused Georgia of trying to join NATO. Obviously, the Russians are not familiar with our acronyms and have confused NATO with NASCAR, NCAA and the NAACP. The state is already well represented in those esteemed organizations.

Our best hope is that Russia will find Georgia to be another Afghanistan and will retreat to Moscow, leaving Uncle Sam to pacify the place.

Returning to the subject I've been trying to avoid: Back during the 1870s, presidential candidate Grover Cleveland was linked with a widow named Maria Halpin and her "love child." Grover was a bachelor and he had several married friends who also were chummy with Maria. So he nobly accepted responsibility for the child, even though he wasn't sure of his paternity. The electorate was tolerant, and after sending him to the White House, his supporters sang: "Hurrah for Maria, hurrah for the kid! We voted for Grover and we're glad that we did!"

The present case has similarities. A staff member for Edwards has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the child Edwards stands accused of fathering.

That's all grist for the tabloids. The real question: Should John Edwards be elected vice president, what would he advise the president to do about the invasion of Georgia?

(Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson SC 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com)

Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes has died. The picture above is the cover of his breakout "Hot Buttered Soul" LP, recorded on 1969.

Unlike most pop albums of the day, Hot Buttered Soul featured only four songs. the shortest being only 5 minutes. The two longest songs were "By the time I get to Phoenix" at 18:40 and Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By" at 18:40.

It's interesting that this songwriter featured interpretations of other artist's songs on his breakout album. Furthermore, at a time when albums typically featured 3 minute songs designed for radio airplay, this one didn't.

In my opinion, the intro to the theme from Shaft (specifically the opening 16th note drum beats on a high-hat cymbal) define one of the most memorable hooks from songs of that era.

....that which we are about to receive, we thank thee Oh Lord....

......

The Searchers is a favorite of mine and was on AMC tonight.

"That'll be the day!" is a frequent exclamation of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in the film and probably the most well known line.

However, my favorite line is "(for) that which we are about to receive, we thank thee Oh Lord," uttered by the somewhat addled Mose, as shown in the clip below.

...Bet you thought the title had something to do with the 2008 presidential elections and not a 52 year old western!

There is some unfortunate camera instability in my amateurish clip which was brought about by a cat swatting at a dangling lens cover.

Cheers!