Biden Again

I seem to be at risk of becoming a one-man Joe Biden campaign committee (link). Now that's a thankless job for you--not quite as thankless, perhaps, as representing Biden's colleague, Chris Dodd, or his former colleague Mike Gravel and all the rest of the I-forget-how-many also-rans in the Democratic primary. But I caught Biden at the National Press Club (via C-Span) and I gotta say--yes, his teeth are too white; his hair is too packaged, and he still prattles, but of all the candidates of either party, he is perhaps the one who is easiest to listen to, who actually says a little something that moves the ball down field. Some highlights (all from memory, I was on the exercise bike, and did not take notes):

• There aren't a dozen senators who sincerely believe that the President is on the right track; they're just trying to pick the right moment to bail--not to early (so as to offend the base) or too late (so as to go down with the ship).

• Left with the current mess, the next President will have a smaller margin for error than any President in modern times.
  

• He's the right guy to solve the health care problem because solving health care is a matter of making a deal (aka "reaching consensus"), and he knows how to make a deal (that for you, Hillary).

• The next President will have to be a foreign policy heavyweight (that for you, everyone else in the race).

Indeed, Biden on the stump makes so much sense, you have to wonder, why on earth is he running (perhaps particularly considering that stuff about margin for error, supra)? I can think of two reasons: one, perhaps the more obvious, is that he's not running for President; he's running for Secretary of State. But two: he simply thinks he is more experienced, better trained-okay, all-round more competent--than anybody else in the race.

It is to laugh: does anyone think we have ever elected the "most competent" person to the Presidency? Maybe Washington. By a stretch, possibly Eisenhower. Certainly not the great unexpected successes like Lincoln and Truman. Probably the best thing Biden can aspire to is to become a Democratic George Schulz--of whom Henry Kissinger said, if we chose a President for competence, it would be he.

Maybe the ultimate problem with Biden is that he came to the Senate at the age of 30, and we can never quite shake off the notion that he is a small, yipping cocker spaniel. Or maybe the problem is structural: at the NPC, someone asked him why, after Mark Warner left the race, did Biden not inherit the Democratic center? Not missing a beat, Biden responded:

"I did."