The Entertainment Factor Continues
Posted by Zach Wendling on 23 August 2008 | 19 responses
Allow me to try to recreate me initial reaction to the selection of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. as Barack Obama’s running mate:
a’ ha . . . Haha . . . HAHAHAHA
These might be veep debates I’ll actually tune into.
Ladies and gentlemen: the Michael Scott candidate.
19 Responses to “The Entertainment Factor Continues”
This is going to be a fun ride. I’m surprised when he was telling the guy in the clip about Indians, he didn’t say “dot not feather” or some such.
Biden must shop a lot at Kwik-E-Mart.
I wonder if he’ll get Matt Groening’s vote?
I think Dan Quayle was the original Michael Scott candidate. But, I agree – Biden should provide some good quotes.
But, Biden is actually from Scranton, PA!
If only we could get him to try on a Dunder Mifflin T-shirt…
I will plead cultural ignorance and had to Wikipedia for Michael Scott. Once I got up to speed, The Office character seems to fit well; per Wikipedia, “He is portrayed as absurdly pathetic, yet invariably holds grandiose views of himself, and he is also the central character.”
Not quite. He gets a supporting role here.
If he weren’t Canadian, I’d recommend that famous Quebec hockey player Jacques Strappe for VP; he’s great at a supporting role.
Does this make Hillary Jan?
“Jan Levinson Gould…or as I call her ‘Hilary Rodham Clinton’….but not to her face.”
Talk about “absurdly pathetic.” But nice try, anyway. Here’s your Michael Scott candidate yesterday: “Your kitchen table is like mine, you sit there at night after you put the kids to bed and you talk about what you need. That’s not a worry John McCain has to worry about. He’ll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.”
Oh, and I really like the above Biden quote because it demonstrates that he gets it: in modern (post-Atwater) presidential campaigns, as this post of Zach’s aptly demonstrates, the GOP tendency has been to attack personality or character while the hapless Dem flounders around punching back at policy.
This year looks to be a little different. Even the NY Times number 1 Dem-basher, supposed liberal Maureen Dowd, has gotten a clue. See her column today if you don’t believe me.
… in modern (post-Atwater) presidential campaigns, as this post of Zach’s aptly demonstrates, the GOP tendency has been to attack personality or character while the hapless Dem flounders around punching back at policy.
This year looks to be a little different.
Interesting, is this the “change” we’ve all been promised from Obama’s campaign?
Biden is “one of the poorer members of the Senate”, and apparently only has “one kitchen table”. However,he has been in the Senate for THIRTY-FIVE years! Why is a man that has been this powerful for this long this “poor”? Is there anyone else who has been in the Senate this long that are as poor as Biden?
If Biden is this unsuccessful financially (comparatively) in his personal life, perhaps this should be a concern regarding his sought-after role as the #2 position as VP?
Interesting, is this the “change” we’ve all been promised from Obama’s campaign?
It’s the change I’ve been hoping for. I’m pretty sick of the hapless Democrat victim routine.
Face it, with no ground game (unlike Bush in 2000 and 2004) and 8 years of Bush hanging around his neck like an albatross, all McCain has is media driven attack attack attack in his arsenal. I predict that this may go down as one of the nastiest campaigns in modern history. I can only hope that the Dems are capable of sinking to the occasion.
Biden is “one of the poorer members of the Senate”, and apparently only has “one kitchen table”. However,he has been in the Senate for THIRTY-FIVE years! Why is a man that has been this powerful for this long this “poor”?
Huh? Here’s one guy who goes the US Senate with the idea to do public service instead of using that institution to build up his personal fortune, and you want to hammer him for it? Perhaps you ought to rethink your criticism, Paul.
Keep in mind that “poorer” in the context of the US Senate just means “less well-off”. Biden’s income is something in the low 6 figures, I believe — comfortable, but still well within range of having to think about how much to spend on shoes, and not having to think about how many houses one owns.
I agree with Jerry that this is, in fact, the change we’ve been waiting for, though not quite for the reasons he suggests. For no good reason at all, a lot of people have gotten the rather silly idea that what Obama has meant by his version of “change” talk is something like being all nice & fluffy. But it seems to me — especially if you look at his real & substantive record in the statehouse and in the senate — that what he has in mind is getting past the sort of politics that aims at division, that hopes to split the country in two and have the 51% piece, and replace it with a politics that involves building coalitions with members of both parties who are actually serious about governing. This will involve conversation and compromise — both dirty words under the current GOP leadership.
However, if you’re going to have something like a rational discussion about policy, then you can’t let the smear-artists and knee-jerks take over the discourse. It’s impossible to get anything done when no one can hear anyone over all the ranting and Roving. So, part of getting exactly that promised change in the style of politics, is hitting back against the GOP attack machine. Which is what it sounds like everyone is expecting Biden to be very good at doing.
Interesting, if I am reading this correctly, the comments by Josh and Jerry imply that Biden will be an attack dog of sorts. On the other hand, Philosopher seems to think that Biden is going to be some type of compromiser. Having watched the confirmation hearings of Roberts and Alito, I have a feeling that Josh and Jerry are correct.
Jerry, even if Biden DID enter the Senate for altruistic motives (I am not naive enough to think so, especially having heard him speak, but let’s say that its true for argument’s sake), I am not aware of some rule saying that you can’t have an altruistic motive for public service and be a financial success at the same time. My criticism still stands.
“Philosopher seems to think that Biden is going to be some type of compromiser.” That is, in fact, the opposite of what I wrote.
Philosopher – I was confused by the rhetoric of your 2nd paragraph but I see that now.
I think Barack is tied for the best Democratic candidate of my lifetime (with Bill Clinton), but I believe Barack’s choice of Biden was a poor one in many regards. One of them is that it is so hard for Biden to be an attack dog when he has gone on the record so many times saying how much he likes and appreciates McCain.
That might be a problem, but I think that he’s got a move available here that will jibe well with a lot of the narrative that the Dems are using against McCain: namely, that he’s totally sold out his maverickiness in order to court the hard right. “I respected the John McCain that was running in 2000, but this clown that’s running for president now… well, he’s changed, and for the worse. The old John McCain might have been willing to fight Bush and Cheney for what he thought was right, but now he votes with them 100% of the time! I don’t know what John McCain stands for, and I wonder if even he does anymore.” That sort of thing.
“Interesting, if I am reading this correctly, the comments by Josh and Jerry imply that Biden will be an attack dog of sorts.”
Huh? Although I do believe Biden will be an attack dog of sorts, my comment implied no such thing. It was simply a question.