Legal Commentary

I hate to pee rain on the upcoming parade, but yesterday morning's news that Obama picked Biden to be his Veep was pretty disappointing to me.  Here are any number of things that come to mind as reasons why he shouldn't have been chosen, at least based on my quick and untutored reactions.

a) Like the majority of Dems in the Senate during the first Iraq war, he voted against the effort to liberate Kuwait. This strikes me as an obviously wrong decision. By contrast his vote for authorizing the second Iraq use of force resolution is one that I think reasonable American politicians could disagree about. The fact that Obama voted against it and Biden voted for it may be a kind of triangulation device but I can't tell.

b) While he was recently running for the Dem nomination for POTUS, Biden dissed Obama as not ready for prime time. Now we get to hear that statement over and over again. Not to mention his other bone-headed comment about Obama as a nice mainstream articulate black guy. Thanks JB. I'm looking forward to more of your insights into a diverse America.

c) As a professor, I can't help but notice that Biden had (at best) an utterly mediocre  academic background, and he was busted for plagiarism as a student and as a presidential candidate. Really, do academic achievement and intellectual integrity matter so little??

d) Notwithstanding the coverage in the Times today about Biden's foreign policy chops  -- but see supra a) -- Biden brings little identifiable talent or credentials of the sort that will help Obama secure the election, or persuade the voters that he's above politics as usual. Who does he pick as his running mate? A six-term senator.

I know Biden's supposed to be a great guy and that he's gone through lots and also improved over time in terms of his legislative abilities.  And I'm genuinely open to learning more about Biden as the next few days and months come around. (Wes Oliver, come educate me gently!)

But I can't believe we had to wait so long to find out that Biden's the VP selection.  I can only imagine that Biden's public skeletons were the least evil of the others under consideration.  And in terms of whether he's "ready" to be President, sure, he's been in the Senate since he was 29. But is there any plausible sense that he's got the game to be POTUS? I'm looking forward to being proven wrong, but I worry that if Biden's indicative of Obama's judgment on serious matters, the Dems need to worry more. I suspect that the race just got even tighter.