The last two Democratic vice-presidential candidates have been major disappointments. People now have lots of reasons to think poorly of Joe Lieberman; and John Edwards affair has muddied the waters surrounding him as well. But I’m not talking about any of that stuff. They were disappointments because each in their own way either failed or refused to take on one of the Veeps primary responsibilities — beating up the Republican presidential candidate.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the last couple days what I think of Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden. And I think it’s great, for a lot of reasons. But one of the reasons I think it’s great is that Biden is temperamentally suited to lay into McCain and I’m expecting that he will.
But that’s not what Richard Cohen thinks. In his column (“Obama’s Reassuring Choice“) this morning in the Post, the paragon of the DC establishment, says he’s confident that Biden won’t play the attack dog role because he knows Joe and Joe’s a “gentleman.”
Well, we’ll see.
The most cutting and damaging critiques often come from ‘friends’ because they speak with authority, knowing the person well. McCain is also very thin-skinned when he’s criticized aggressively. And there’s a litany of stories and issues that the press has seen fit to ignore.
So this is the question for Biden, for the Obama campaign, for the Democratic senators who know McCain and are in a strong position to bring the fight to him. Is this for keeps? I think there are a lot of Democrats around the country who’ve seen McCain’s sleazy campaign and gotten a clear look at his phony reputation and not only know how critical it is for the country not to let John McCain become president but also want to do everything they can to make sure that John McCain’s reputation is fundamentally altered, broken down, degraded, made more, in a word, accurate by November 2008. It’s that or signing on for more of the free ride on lobbying sleaze, erratic behavior and instability, age and more. The country’s at stake. So who wants to play for keeps?
