Chicago Daily Observer

From Boston Herald

Barack Obama’s campaign has pulled the plug on a Florida news station’s access to the presidential candidate after an anchorwoman angered Joe Biden with uncomfortable questions during a satellite interview.

WFTV-Channel 9 anchorwoman Barbara West quizzed Sen. Biden about Obama’s intention to “spread the wealth,” referring to the Democratic White House contender’s comments to “Joe the Plumber.”

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Biden was factually incorrect – he had conducted at the time over 80 interviews, not press conferences, ranging from local newspapers to network morning shows, with an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and a dozen interviews with major networks and newspapers.

And to belatedly answer Biden’s question, it has been 55 days since he held a press conference. He has held two since being named Obama’s running mate.

Biden has also not taken questions from voters in a town hall style setting since Sept. 10 in Nashua, New Hampshire, when he told a supporter that Hillary Clinton might have been a better pick for vice president.

Since then, Biden has only held “community gatherings” and “rallies” where he makes a speech and chats briefly with supporters on the ropeline under the blare of music, no questions asked. Even there, Biden says very little after a digital recorder caught ... Read More...

Either Joe Biden IS mentally deranged from those two prior aneurisms… or he is a Republican mole…or he has been struck by a thunderbolt, tossed from his chariot on the way to Damascus and has been electrified into telling the truth. In any case, here is the October Surprise, delivered gratis by not just a Democrat but the Democratic vice presidential nominee, lifted from the Senate chamber and moved to Barack Obama’s side by nature of his expertise in foreign affairs basis his chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee.

As the world either now knows or will shortly, this is what Biden said-captured on video tape-in a fund-raising speech delivered Sunday in Seattle:

“Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did Jack Kennedy. The world is looking. Remember, I said it standing here, if you don’t remember anything else I ... Read More...

Readers, e-mailers, callers and fellow barflies pose pertinent questions. Sometimes even journalists do. So here’s my rendition of what the commercial websites call FAQs.

Q: Does it have to take a recession to elect a Democratic president?
A: Yup. The Republican genius has long been the ability to get people to vote against their own economic interests. Repubs seem somehow able to persuade enough people that what others do in their bedrooms or their doctor’s office or on Sunday mornings is more important than shrinking paychecks. Then reality sets in and people wake up unemployed, without enough to pay the doctor and no retirement in sight. It’s now late in the game and it seems enough people have awakened to the new reality. They might even vote for a guy with a different paint job. At least now that he’s properly dressed with a flag on his lapel.

Q: ... Read More...

Carding the Palin-Biden debate, initially I made a mistake. As an old geezer, I showed my fondness for political tradition and was impressed with Joe Biden’s staccato recitation of facts and statistics…even lies…because that has been what I have grown up with. Having lived a span that extends from Franklin Roosevelt through most legislators who orate in that cavern known as the U.S. Senate, I have become at ease with those who rip off verbal paragraphs even if they have little relevance to the question involved. But I should have remembered. Ronald Reagan brought a new style of argumentation to modern politics-the conversational tone, the deferential bob of the head, shy smile and “there you go again.” So initially I was giving the debate to Joe Biden, albeit very thankful that Sarah Palin wasn’t gumming it up.

But midway through the debate I knew I was far wrong…and that Palin ... Read More...

It will be difficult for Sarah Palin to lose tonight’s vice-presidential debate. There are low expectations for her and she has several opportunities to score big.

First, she could show her humor by saying that she had thought of asking Tina Fey to stand in for her. Or, secondly, she could say that she understood that her candidacy was even making atheists pray—for John McCain to live through his term if he wins.

Joe Biden, who is more knowledgeable should be careful not to assault Palin on her qualifications. In fact he might think of saying, that no one should complain about Governor Palin’s credentials. If they have any complaints its McCain’s judgment that needs to be called into question.

McCain’s choice of Palin, even with her drop in the polls, is still beneficial for McCain. It solidifies the Christian and conservative right wing Republican base and still appeals to ... Read More...

This morning I was a guest at 10 am (by telephone from my home office) on Jerry Agar’s WLS-AM show. (On with us was Pat Cassidy who recently made the move to the talk radio station from anchoring at WBBM-AM.)

I took my dog out and then sat down at the kitchen table with the four newspapers—Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal—that are delivered every morning to my doorstep. I spent maybe an hour with them, clipped a few articles to read later, and then went to my office to take the producer’s call.

Things were going along just fine until Agar played a clip of Joe Biden; I expected that it would be Biden saying something outlandish because he so often does, but I had no idea how outlandish. I could not hear the tape; it wasn’t clear to me what Biden was ... Read More...

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

As Reason’s Jesse Walker footnotes it: “And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, ‘Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?’”

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In response to numerous requests to clarify each of Sen’s Obama, Biden, and McCain’s votes on the Coburn amendment to HR 3058, here is the full text of the Coburn amendment shifting funding from Alaska bridge construction to Lousiana bridge repair.

Sen Obama and Sen Biden voted against the amendment (equivalently voting in favor of funding the Bridge to Nowhere).

Sen. McCain did not vote.

Text of Amendment SA 2165. Mr. COBURN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 3058, making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia, and independent agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes; as follows:

At the appropriate place, add the following: Section 144(g)(1) of title 23, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in subparagraph (A)(ii), by striking “for the construction of a bridge ... Read More...

Just as Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his running mate told us much about how the campaign perceived its weaknesses and strengths (see last week’s column), so the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tells us what John McCain & Co. really think about their own chances.

I think they think they’re in big trouble and consequently chose a high-risk strategy. They’re gambling she will be the same help to McCain as Lyndon Johnson was to John F. Kennedy but run the risk she will be as Spiro Agnew was to Richard Nixon.

First off, like the Obama campaign, they eschewed electoral geography. Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge, Rob Portman or Mitt Romney would have been helpful in the key battleground states of Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan respectively. There are various reasons why any one of them would be rejected, but essentially the campaign is saying none guarantees ... Read More...

No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won’t give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front.

Biden has described himself as a 30-year friend of a key figure in the Rezko trial who’s pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in Chicago and is awaiting sentencing.

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No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won’t give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front.

Biden has described himself as a 30-year friend of a key figure in the Rezko trial who’s pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in Chicago and is awaiting sentencing.

When the Delaware senator began contemplating his own 2008 presidential run, he initially was helped by Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari Jr., who also served as Biden’s Midwest field director in his failed 1988 bid for president.

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I wonder whether Barack Obma’s vetters, Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, knew what they were doing when they settled on Joe Biden. Journalists and McCain opposition researchers must be logging on to Nexis and searching 1987–1988 using the key words “Biden and plagiarism. “ There is a feast of material—I have culled examples from various print and electronic sources—that would make even the most partisan Obama backer question the wisdom of this choice.

Biden, then 44, was forced out of the 1988 presidential race-—he officially dropped out on September 23, 1987—just when his candidacy seemed to be taking off in Iowa, the all important first caucus, and just as he seemed to be gaining on Michael Dukakis, the eventual nominee.

(Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 from Delaware. He was only 29, and was one of the two youngest men ever elected to the Senate.)

A Dukakis ... Read More...

Smart, thoughtful, experienced, a first-rate legislator who’s usually on the correct side (my side, that is) of the issues, yet given to multiple mouthy mishaps. Joe Biden talks too much and too long and his words get ahead of his brain and he spends weeks apologizing for his gaffes instead of sharing his more worthy ideas.

Right out of the box this year, declaring for the presidency, the six-term senator from Delaware called Barack Obama “articulate” and noted the guy was “clean.” Not as bad as Bill O’Reilly’s amazement at the fact that people at a black restaurant were “normal,” but stupidly patronizing.

The triage experts in the media immediately wrote him off and he’s lived up to their expectations ever since. Came up with a doozy several weeks ago with some Comedy-Channel-style comment about Indian accents behind the counters at 7–11 stores.

Does he still wonder why the press ... Read More...