ACORN?:

Sen. Biden Suggests Scrapping Hearings (AP, 1/12/06)

Supreme Court nominees are so mum about the major legal issues at their Senate confirmation hearings that the hearings serve little purpose and should probably be abandoned, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden said Thursday.

He's unlikely to get any argument except from the far Left.

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Loose Lips Sink . . .: Biden's Leadership Is Lost in All His Talk (Richard Cohen, January 12, 2006, Washington Post)

The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden. [...]

The tragedy is that Biden, who is running for president, is a much better man and senator than these accounts would suggest. But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency. It is his version of corruption, of alcoholism, of a fierce temper or vile views -- all the sorts of things that have crippled candidates in the past. It is, though, an innocent thing, as good-humored as the man and of no real policy consequence. It will merely stunt him politically.

'Tis a pity. Biden occupies the sensible center of the Democratic Party. He supported Bill Clinton's crime bill (more cops, fewer assault rifles) which helped the Democrats fight the talk-show calumny that they were pro-crime and anti-cop.

While suggesting that the assault weapons ban, which helped produce the GOP landslide of '94, is a point in Mr. Biden's favor is indicative of how awful Mr. Cohen's analyses generally are, it's surprising that he hasn't at least read Richard Ben Cramer's What it Takes. We can know he hasn't because no one who had would argue that the Senator's Diarrhea of the mouth doesn't reveal everything we need to know about him.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2006 8:37 AM