Biden - warning: Politics ahead

Well, if nothing else it's over.

I was so sick of hearing about who Obama might pick,  why he might pick them,  the neato way he'd inform the world (text message) and gosh darnit,  was that use of the masculine pronoun a tipoff or is Obama just a foolin' with us here reporters? My lord MSNBC, just kiss the guy already.

It was like watching the season finale of The Bachelor over and over for weeks.

I for one have always felt the entire VP selection is overblown. Important, yes. Vital for reassuring the country? Perhaps. But I don't believe any Presidential candidate goes into this thinking he's going to die in office, which means the selection is more about election politics than the health of the nation. So we waste gads of time obsessing over a tactical move by a candidate and in the end the impact is usually overblown.

It didn't have to be that way this year. Had Obama picked Hilary the media attention alone might have drowned out the McCain campaign long enough to stop it dead in the water. But that was never going to happen; the campaign had been too bitter, and the spector of the Clinton yoke was too real to even bring up HRC as a contender.

But Joe Biden? I'm not even a Democrat and I feel let down. Yikes.

Look, I get it. Obama's running on a very short resume and his one big foreign policy effort has been minimized by the Surge. It makes sense to go with someone with a few more years in Washington and some foreign policy expertise. I just think there were better choices out there.

One of the campaign mandates is 'change' is it not? Biden's been in Washington longer than I've been alive, and I'm old enough to remember the bicentennial (in a blurry sort of way). More to the point he spent all of *four* years in the private sector before landing his gig inD.C, making it all the more obvious that for Biden it's about the power and not a desire to 'change' the system. He IS the system.

The idea that it was necessary to choose someone the (professional) polar opposite of yourself does not, in my mind, work to resolve skepticism of your credentials.

Biden himself jumped on Obama in his short-lived campaign for the Oval Office. "The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.," he said. Biden has also questioned  his judgment on Iraq, Afghanistan and his willingness to meet  with the leaders of 'rogue' states.

Worthless campaign snipe? Sure. I don't put too much stock into it. But in turn I also won't buy the lovey-dovey between the two we're sure to see until November.

From a strictly practical point of view, I don't get it. Biden is an uninspiring national figure, never getting past the first innings of the Presidential primaries. He's from a state with a mere 3 delegates, and more to the point he's from a section of the country that's painted a solid blue. Why not pick someone from the South or from areas that are walking a thin line between the parties?

Biden's only two selling points are the experience angle and his abilities as a crass, sometimes foul-mouthed attack dog. That has it's place, and I"m sure he'll be put to good use.

But he also has a reputation as a seriously long winded, meandering speaker who sometimes says things that are offensive and/or insensitive. He's never had to worry about that for too long on the campaign trail (the plus side of losing I guess) but now he'd better mind his P's and Q's for the next ten weeks.

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End of netural apprasial, start of personal thought:

This next bit might come off as a crude attack itself, but I assure you it is my longheld and personal opinion of the man, admittedly created by nothing but his appearance and his sound bytes. And if I feel some way, just on gut reaction, then I'm sure others in Topeka and San Bernadino feel the same.

My vibe:  I don't like him. I think he's full of himself and phony. His hair-plugged mullet irks me. And for the life of me every time I see him I picture him as the kind of guy who comes home late, joins his wife for a cocktail at a dinner party  then excuses himself to see his mistress, grabbing his wife's ass as he leaves (and making sure all his friends see him do it).

Of course, I have an active imagination. But I can't, I just can't be the only American who thinks he comes off as slightly creepy.