So it wasn’t Hillary.

     Senator Joe “Is This Mike On?” Biden has been picked by Barack Obama to be his running mate. If nothing else, Biden is insurance against the possibility of Senator Obama developing laryngitis.

     Joe Biden has a well-deserved reputation of being a chatterbox. He may not exceed the verbiage produced by the all-time champ, the late Vice President Hubert H. “I’m Happy to Be Here” Humphrey, but no one living has so perfectly motorized a mouth.

     On the plus side, Senator Biden is a well-regarded Senate veteran. If Obama is elected he will be able to liaison with the upper chamber very effectively. Biden is also expert in foreign affairs, although his idea to split Iraq up into a federation of independent states won no salute when he ran it up the proverbial flagpole.

     It must also be admitted that Sen. Biden occasionally puts his foot in his mouth. Plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neal Kinnock, when Biden first sought the democratic nomination, was not his finest hour.

     Nor was it a triumph when he said of Obama in January of last year, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

      That doesn’t work on so many levels. The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean? What is Jesse Jackson, then? Or Colin Powell? Or Condoleeza Rice? How do they fail to be articulate, bright and clean? Describing black men and women is a subtle put-down, inferring that blacks, as a people are somehow deficient in intelligence or language skills.

     But “clean” was Biden’s adjectival crusher. The other African-American politicians of our time are unclean? Does Biden mean in terms of physical hygiene or does he mean “clean” in terms of honesty and integrity? However he means it, it is a devastatingly racist thing to say. Next thing you know he will be making jokes about convenience store clerks from India…

     Perhaps the best thing about Joe Biden is that he is not Hillary Clinton –at least if you, dear reader, wish to have Obama win this election.

     Hillary was a trap, a temptation that Obama probably did not have a lot of trouble resisting. Aside from the fact that he fails to find any affinity for her; there is also her baggage.

     Hillary would bring to the campaign a lot of unanswered questions about her behavior during the eight years of her husband’s presidency. Old issues would be dredged up, washed off and put on the table again.

     Hillary’s hub, ex-President Clinton, would also distract attention from Obama’s message. Everything he would say in public would be weighed to see if he was truly “enthusiastically” supporting Obama or damning him with faint praise –or outright criticism. This would happen quite a bit because right after Joe Biden, Bill Clinton is the biggest motor mouth in politics. The campaign would be about the Clintons, not Obama.

      Now it is John McCain’s turn to decide on a vice presidential running mate. If he’s smart he will announce the name right after this week’s Democratic Convention ends, to steal the publicity from Obama on what should be his biggest day of “bounce.”

     I propose he nominate General David Petraeus. Petraeus turned a losing war into a victory, so we know he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Or, if he had not already been co-opted by the Obama campaign, Colin Powell.

     Condi Rice would be a good choice, as would be Mike Huckabee. Condi Rice, the first black woman nominee, is extremely qualified for the job having been National Security advisor and Secretary of State. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is a conservative with solid evangelical support.

     And then there is Mitt.

     Don’t get me wrong; I personally like Mitt Romney. He looks presidential. Even if can’t deliver Massachusetts for McCain he might be able to deliver Michigan, where dad George Romney is fondly remembered. He is a successful businessman whose acumen played a big role in saving the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. He brings economic credibility to the ticket.

     Mitt, a Mormon, does not play well with evangelicals, however. And this is a year when McCain cannot afford to alienate his base. Also, Mitt’s conversion to conservatism is quite recent and reeks of expediency. I hope he finds being pro-life and pro-capital punishment to be at least refreshingly different.

     Finally, if the primary season this year proved anything, it proved that Romney is not a winner. Therefore, without hesitation, I predict McCain will pick Romney, if only to be contrary.

     It’s a good thing that in the end, voters really don’t care or even remember who the vice presidential picks were come November.

It is unfortunate but true…  that the politics of personal destruction has being going on in presidential politics for quite some time now. In 1984 a peace activist, lecturing school children in Maine, predicted they would never grow up if Reagan were reelected because he would cause a nuclear war.
     Some of the kinder epithets thrown at Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) were “The Original Gorilla,” “baboon,” (according to Gen. McClellan), and “tyrant.” Enemies claimed that his real goal was to force white women to marry freed slaves. Harper’s Magazine put it all in one sentence calling Lincoln, “Filthy story teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate.”
     Barack Obama is in excellent company.

     As Obama himself admits, his is not the typical presidential biography. Born of a Kansas mother and a Kenyan father, he was raised for a few years in Indonesia and grew to manhood in his grandparents’ home in Hawaii. There is fertile ground here for insinuation and invective.
     At least that is what author Jerome Corsi, Ph.D., seems to have found, judging from his book, The Obama Nation. I have no principles that are offended by books or articles attacking Obama’s policy positions, or his lack of sufficient experience, as reasons to vote against him. One could write volumes.
     On the other hand I cannot trust any book that is researched so poorly or makes major claims unsupported by evidence. 
     I’ve written and published some non-fiction myself. In researching the life of General Grant I checked, double checked and triple-checked original and top secondary sources before asserting facts about Grant’s Civil War career (Commanders in Focus: Ulysses S. Grant, Brassey, 2004). I read and reread every book I could find on the man, even those only tangentially concerning him.
     That is the standard of research usually required for non-fiction. I emphasize the word “usually.”

     What kind of research must Dr. Corsi have done if he gets the date of Obama’s wedding wrong? He asserts Obama does not mention the birth of his half-sister in his books (he does) He claims Obama wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan (Obama has consistently called for reinforcing the U.S. presence there).
     How can Obama be tainted both by his membership in a radical Christian church (Trinity United Church of Christ) and by allegedly “extensive” ties to Islam? Wouldn’t it be one or the other?
      Obama admitted using cocaine as a youth. Dr. Corsi claims he’s still on the stuff. Says who? What an allegation without evidence to back it up!  
     I could never place any credibility in a book so sloppily researched, so careless of fact.

    I oppose Barack Obama. I do not like his policies on defense, abortion and social programs. I think his message of “change” and “hope” is at best vague and undefined mush. Obama is inexperienced. He certainly does not have the experience in national government required if we are going to face a new cold war with the Russians at the same time we are waging a war against Islamist terror.
     But Obama does not deserve a bucket of mud in the face. Let him rise or fall on the merits of his ideas and in the forum of civilized discussion. Let the people have facts to weigh and accurate quotes from the candidates to ponder as we make our electoral decisions.