Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Joe Biden and the Incredible Lightness of Being   [Victor Davis Hanson]

Watching Joe Biden is better than examining the polls or listening to talking heads, since he instantaneously reflects cockiness, aggression, bombast, depression, and loss of confidence, predicated on the emotional pulse of the campaign.

Every day is something new: Palin is variously good looking, a step backward for women, a Lieutenant Governor, her Down's syndrome child should prompt her to support stem-cell research, Biden is going to save Obama with the working classes given he lived in Scranton until 10, and like a wounded kitten he meows that Hillary may have been the better VP candidate—at precisely the time of Democratic meltdown when many of his colleagues would agree.

Almost any thought that comes into his head goes out his mouth, and the strange thing is that no one seems to mind (imagine if Sarah Palin had said Obama was good looking, or a step backward, or that Romney would have been a better pick than herself), or even takes what he says seriously. He seems to have established a new Biden's Law: if one makes enough gaffes, they soon reach a point that none of them matter. And even stranger is Biden's Second Law of Politics: the more you sound obnoxious and offend, you soon reach a point where the shocked listener turns from anger to indifference and finally no less to empathy!  

Biden may be arrogant and vain, but he has an odd charm as everyman's nightmare when we root for him not to say something embarrassing, know that when his eyes start spinning he will and can't stop—and know that we will end up either not taking it too seriously or feeling bad for him that he did. I have heard a lot of conservatives rattle off all the reasons why Biden is duplicitious, a bully, and often mean-spirited—before ending up with an inexplicable sigh, "But I sort of like Joe Biden." Even weirder—I  sort of do too, but don't know quite why either.

09/10 11:28 PMShare