VP Profile: Chuck Hagel

Age: 61
Current Position: Senator from Nebraska
Former Positions of Importance:

• Deputy Administrator of Veteran Affairs, 1981-1982

A certain reader has mentioned a couple times that he'd like to see Hagel profiled, so I decided to knuckle under and bow to reader pressure. I'm a weak individual. This might be the last VP Profile; Obama is evidently very close to a decision. Or maybe I'll take a walk on the dark side and profile one of McCain's potential vice presidents. That's right: I'm a crazy man. You never know what I'm gonna do.

Pros: Vice Presidential selections are largely matters of PR in all circumstances, but a Hagel pick would be a huge publicity grab. The NY Times headline writes itself: "In Stunning Move, Obama Tabs Republican Hagel." It would feed into the narrative Obama's campaign has attempted to weave from the moment he entered the race: Obama as a unique, post-partisan figure, the product of an American meritocracy who sees past party labels and cares only about an individual's talent.

In many ways Hagel is a Midwestern, Republican version of Joe Biden: experienced, intelligent, respected and sharp-tongued. If Obama's searching for gravitas, he could do a hell of a lot worse than Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran who has called for an end to the Iraq war. He's also excoriated the Bush administration for its demonization of debate and dissent, which endears him to me.

I could pad this out for a few more paragraphs, but what you've read above is pretty much Hagel's appeal as a VP candidate. Obama would earn plaudits from the various editorial staffs for reaching across the aisle and choosing a Republican, and skeptical independents would like the idea of a seasoned heavyweight like Hagel rounding out the ticket. That's as far as it goes.

Cons: The Democratic base would be pretty pissed. Oh, they like Hagel's stance on the war now, but he was a supporter of the war when it first came to the senate. And for the roots people (both grass and net), it only gets worse.

Because outside of the Iraq War, Hagel's pretty much your normal conservative. NARAL's given him a 0 percent rating, and while math isn't my strong suit, it's hard to imagine someone getting a rating lower than that. Those members of the Angry Hillary Supporters Brigade are not going to be happy about the elevation of a pro-life conservative to the vice-president's slot on Obama's ticket, nor should they be.

The NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign both dislike Hagel; the homosexual and African-American communities aren't likely to abandon Obama, barring some kind of unforeseeable development of the truly extraordinary variety. But thumbing your nose at them doesn't seem like a grand idea.

We could go on like this for awhile; his votes on energy and the environment are also problematic. But I'll try to avoid becoming tedious and simply emphasize that, should Obama choose Hagel as his VP, he'll be picking someone who disagrees with him on the vast majority of the important issues. He'll be picking someone who disagrees with most of his voters. That's risky.

Moving on to more mundane concerns, Hagel brings little geographic appeal to the ticket. Nebraska's not in play, and you'd have to squint awfully hard to convince yourself that he could help Obama in South Dakota. Which isn't really up for grabs anyway.

Verdict: He doesn't seem to be a factor in any of the reports on Obama's thinking; at this point, the shortlist seems to have been winnowed down to the Biden, Bayh, Kaine and Sebelius. A surprise is certainly possible, but everything seems to indicate that Obama will choose from that foursome.

Even if Hagel was part of that final four I don't think it would be a good idea. The novelty of a Republican on the ticket would wear off pretty quickly. Obama's a fan of the whole Lincoln-esque "Team of Rivals" motif, but that idea is stretched to the breaking point when you choose someone who disagrees with you on so many issues. It's also asking a lot of your base to support someone like Hagel.

But all is not lost for Hagel, who's retiring from the Senate this year. He's been talked up as a potential Secretary of Defense in an Obama administration. That seems like a good place for a Republican like Hagel. Obama can do his "Team of Rivals" thing by giving the opposition party an important cabinet post and demonstrate that he takes the Defense Department so seriously that he's willing to ignore partisan concerns and choose the best secretary for the job.

A Barack Obama Joke

The McCain campaign is welcome to steal this, provided I get full credit and royalties:

God and Barack Obama meet for the first time. God is an Obama fan, but wants to poke a little fun at Obama's supposed arrogance and has spent weeks crafting the perfect joke.

"Barack," God says, "I've got a joke for you."

"OK," Obama says.

"What's the difference between you and me," God asks.

Obama shrugs and says, "My books are interesting?"

Does Humidity Weaken Your Ligaments?

A couple days ago I wrote about Florida TE Cornelius Ingram's injury: a torn ACL. Back in July I wrote about injuries suffered by safeties Dorian Munroe and John Curtis: torn ACLs.

Well, those pesky ACLs continue to bedevil Urban Meyer and his gang. Backup offensive linemen Jim Barrie, a sophomore, and backup middle linebacker Brandon Beal, one of Florida's more highly rated freshmen, both tore their ACLs this week.

Ingram and Munroe were big losses, while Curtis, Barrie and Beal are mostly depth casualties. UF's best defensive player in middle linebacker Brandon Spikes, and Beal was about third or fourth on the depth chart there. Barrie wasn't breaking into Florida's starting offensive line this season.

But that's not the point. UF's also suffered a handful of other injuries this fall; offensive tackle Carl Johnson broke his wrist, receiver Louis Murphy is battling a sprained ankle, lineman Sam Robey dislocated his kneecap, defensive tackle Omar Hunter is battling a back issue and lineman Matt Patchan is recovering from a gunshot wound. You know, standard stuff, the kind of injuries a lot of teams suffer.

But the ACL tears, while not unique to UF (Georgia lost its best offensive lineman to the same injury), are troublesome. I'm not in any kind of position to critique the strength and conditioning system crafted by Florida's training staff; in fact, S&C Coordinator Mickey Marotti is regarded as one of the best in the country. Nor can I comment on the ferocity of Florida's fall practices. I'm not in Gainesville, and even if I was, Meyer closed practices to the public after Ingram's tear.

There has been always been this annoying little voice in the back of my head that insists I'm supporting a modern gladiator system when I watch football. At least the pros get paid. To be sure, the collegians get a free college education, but considering how players are often encouraged to do the bare minimum in the classroom, the value of that education is rather questionable.

So I cringe a little hearing about all these injuries. Barrie, Beal, Curtis, Ingram and Munroe will all have the luxury of a world-class sports medicine and rehabilitation program as they attempt to recover. These days an ACL injury, while serious, is not career-ending. Athletes come back from ACL tears all the time.

But the rehab process is still long and painful, both physically and mentally. I wonder sometimes if it's really appropriate to support a system that puts these 18 year olds through a grinder in an effort to glorify a coach or a university.

The reality, though, is that I have those thoughts a lot, and I still watch Florida football, still scream for Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin. I still intend to write up a lengthy preview post in a couple of weeks before UF's opener with Hawaii. And I still plan to do some bragging should UF win a championship this year. Maybe that's a sign of moral weakness. I don't know.

Mark Penn, Obama's Past and the "Correct" American Life

The internet's been buzzing about this Atlantic piece by reporter Joshua Green. I'm not actually in love with the story. It's not bad, and if you're a junkie like me you'll want to read it, but Green promises in his first two paragraphs some fresh insights into Hillary Clinton's defeat. Instead he writes a fairly conventional piece that'll seem awfully familiar if you've been reading the various papers. Staff conflicts, philosophical failings, etc.

The appeal of Green's story is the in-house memos and e-mails he wrangled from the remnants of the Clinton campaign. You've probably seen the memo that's become the highlight of Green's article; it comes from "chief strategist" Mark Penn and is dated March 19, 2007. The money quote:

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.
Save it for 2050.
It also exposes a very strong weakness for him—his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.

OK, so Mark Penn is a world-class prick and either a racist or someone who's anxious to appeal to racists. That's abundantly clear.

But I am now more concerned with the idea he's expressing in that quote, the concept that there's something uniquely dark and un-American about Obama's biography, that there's something vulnerable there. I'm interested in that idea because it's become an unspoken part of the McCain campaign strategy. They've openly questioned Obama's loyalty and patriotism; see the previous post and McCain's "rather lose a war" comment a few weeks ago. In making that "argument," the McCain people never explicitly mention Obama's past or his race, but they are certainly counting on the idea that his biography makes him uniquely vulnerable to patriotism questions.

I started Distressed Reporter about a month ago, so I'm obviously late to a lot of these larger discussions. We all know about the "Obama's a Muslim" emails, for instance. And I know the facts of Obama's biography have been hashed out before.

But for all that hashing, Penn's basic assertions still seem to constitute the conventional wisdom on Obama's biography. I wonder if that says more about the people who sculpt our conventional wisdom than it does about Obama or the public at large.

I say that because, to my thoroughly biased eyes, Obama's is the kind of life that represents what we say the American Dream is about. He is, many ways, the best example we can point to when we tell our children that they can grow up to become president. In the past, there was a kind of unspoken, unacknowledged racial asterisk by that promise; if you were black, or, really, anything other than white, the line came off as trite and deceptive. Obama's biography should be enough to erase that asterisk.

And I wonder from where we got the idea that the American people couldn't connect to a man raised by a single mother dedicated to her son and his education. Yes, their life and that education spanned the world and involved some unfamiliar places. But in a country with a 50 percent divorce rate, it seems that there are at least as many voters who were raised in split homes, under difficult circumstances, with occasionally unavailable parents, as there are voters who were brought up in a Leave It To Beaver episode.

Let me invalidate a lot of what I've written by saying that I find "issues" like these beyond stupid, and put a candidate's biography in the same category as I do the answer to the "Which candidate would I rather have a beer with" question. But if we're going to talk about biographies, it's worth going at least a little beyond the surface. And it's worth observing that while there are more American flags waving in the background of McCain's life, Obama's personal history is, in its own way, as quintessentially American as anyone's.

Joe Lieberman Continues to Amaze

Lieberman Harshly Criticizes Obama

An account from The Times of Lieberman's appearance at an event in York, Pennsylvania quotes the following quote from the august senator:

“In my opinion, the choice could not be more clear: between one candidate, John McCain, who’s had experience, been tested in war and tried in peace, another candidate who has not,’’ Mr. Lieberman said. “Between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not. Between one candidate who’s a talker, and the other candidate who’s the leader America needs as our next president.”

OK, so I'm left with one question: THIS guy used to be my party's candidate for the vice presidency? THIS guy won votes in my party's presidential primary in 2004?

I love Al Gore to death, and if he had run for the presidency this year he would have been my guy, but it's staggering to think that he actually tabbed Lieberman eight years ago.

Did McCain Play The New York Times?

This story appeared in The Times August 9; I'm getting to it now because...well, because I'm lazy and I have lot of nothing to do around the house.

Anyway, the story is a fairly conventional "inside the campaign" peek, the message of which is that John McCain's operation is wide open and at times practically chaotic. Newly imported campaign manager Steve Schmidt is trying to bring order and stability to the campaign, but there remain unresolved tensions simmering barely below the surface.

The story was written by Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg; Nagourney is The Times' chief political correspondent. You'll see his byline on a lot of the paper's campaign trail accounts. The story they write is not, on the surface, entirely flattering. Aside from the description I gave above, at times McCain comes off slightly confused and prone to "adopt the last opinion he has heard."

Yet, the overall image painted by the story is one of John McCain as The Anti-Bush. He's so anxious to hear differing viewpoints from advisers that Schmidt has staffers limit McCain's access to his cell phone. He is "the overseer of a kingdom of dissenting camps."

And McCain's pretty cool with all that. His big quote in the story:

“I think a certain amount of tension is very healthy, and a certain amount of different views,” he said. “Because of the bubble that a president is in, and the bubble that a candidate is in, sometimes you find out afterwards something that — ‘Oh boy, I wish I had heard thus and such and so and so.’ So I appreciate and want some of the tension; I don’t want too much of it, obviously, because we have to have certain efficiencies. But I think there is a balance there.”

What's interesting there is McCain's invocation of the "bubble," which is the exact word that has been frequently used to describe George W. Bush in the Oval Office. In fact, Nagourney and Rutenberg explicitly lay out the anti-Bush argument in one paragraph:

While President Bush has been criticized for being too insular and too slow to adapt to changing circumstances, Mr. McCain’s leadership of his campaign suggests a less hierarchical, more free-form style, much closer to that of President Bill Clinton.

You have your standard accounts of campaign in-fighting; two pollsters with conflicting philosophies are referenced, and the reporters chronicle a fight over McCain's recent negative veer. It might be instructive to note that the latter scuffle was initiated by a couple former McCain ads and outside image man Alex Castellanos, who you might remember from CNN's election night coverage.

I read this story and I can't help but wonder if McCain and Schmidt were thrilled to read it in the paper. McCain is, in this story, an omnivorous information consumer and a fan of dissent. That may all be true. But it seems conveniently timed, coming at a moment when the campaign is desperate to distance their candidate from an unpopular incumbent whose extraordinary lack of intellectual curiosity has long been chronicled.

So in the back of my mind there's a niggling little voice that keeps raising questions, foremost among them being this: did the McCain camp plant this story? You have a couple aides conspicuously grumble around a reporter, maybe stick them at a bar and let the press corps see them slam home a couple beers in frustration. Feed Nagourney and Rutenberg a few choice, anonymous quotes, and the reporter instinct takes over. Now they've got their teeth in a story that paints your guy in a positive light while ostensibly raising questions about the strength of his operation.

And I can't ignore the fact that Nagourney's one of the authors here. As I said, he's a go-to guy for The Times. He was also involved in a fairly significant kerfuffle with the Obama campaign a while back after he analyzed a poll by pointing out that Obama hadn't closed all of America's racial divides. Conflicts between reporters and campaigns are fairly routine, but this one got splashed around the internet and became a (very) minor sensation.

Now, let me say something that will pretty much invalidate the rest of this post: if I had to bet on the motivations involved here, I would guess that Nagourney and Rutenberg wrote the story in the usual way, using the usual sources, with no particularly unique involvement from the McCain camp.

But I do find myself slightly suspicious. And I wanted to share that, because I have lots of free time.

VP Profile: Tim Kaine

Age: 50
Current Position: Governor of Virginia
Former Positions of Importance:

• Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 2002-2006
• Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, 1998-2000

Also someone who's been getting a lot of press in recent weeks. There was a period where he was regarded as the front runner; he's been replaced in that role Bayh Bayh, but Kaine is evidently still in the conversation. He's also someone who was pretty far below my radar until recently, so I'm sort of blind here. Forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me.

Pros: Virginia, Virginia, Virginia and the lucky number 13. Virginia's voters haven't given the state's electoral votes to a Democrat since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won just about everything.

And now the Obama folks think Virginia is vulnerable. The polls over at FiveThirtyEight.com show a race that's so absurdly tight that "too close to call" is an understatement. Virginia's elected a bevvy of Democrats in recent years. Jim Webb beat Senator Macaca Allen in 2006, and the Democrats took control of the state senate in 2007.

Kaine was the first blast of that trumpet. He won the governor's chair in 2005 by six percentage points and by all accounts made dramatic inroads into traditionally Republican areas of Virginia while running up big margins in the Democratic regions.

Perhaps no one knows the state better than Kaine, and Obama's people must be salivating at the thought of dispatching the governor throughout Virginia to preach the gospel of Hope. You win Virginia, and you've pulled in 13 votes, two more than are at stake in Missouri, a traditional swing state. It would be roughly the equivalent of the Republicans picking off Massachusetts.

Kaine's a Spanish-speaking Catholic, a man who took a year off during law school to work as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras. For whatever reason Obama had crippling issues with Catholics in the primaries, and Kaine can speak to them. Kaine's faith is an important part of his life; there's no one Obama can choose who would help him more with those voters.

Cons: Kaine might come off as a blatant vote grab, a sign that Obama doesn't take governing as seriously as campaigning. The reality, of course, is that every presidential candidate chooses a vice president with political considerations in mind. Sometimes it's less a matter of targeting a particular state or region and more an issue of using the VP to assuage fears; Dick Cheney didn't bring any geographic appeal to the Bush ticket in 2000, but he was tabbed (by himself, to be sure) to lend weight and gravitas to the untested George W. Bush. But choosing the popular governor of a crucial swing state is rather blatantly political, especially considering...

Kaine has no experience of any consequence. Mayor of Richmond isn't an easy gig, but it's hard to keep a straight face while arguing that it prepares one to be vice president. Governor of Virginia is a legitimate resume entry, as the executive experience gained there could be vital. But Kaine has had that job for slightly more than two years. Again, there's nothing there Obama can point to in a press conference that will let him say, "Here's the reason Tim Kaine is qualified."

Kaine's devout Catholicism has fed some rather nuanced views on social issues. He's personally opposed to abortion, has a "faith-based" issue with it, but he has publicly repudiated efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade. He's against the death penalty, but during his time as governor he has overseen a handful of executions and has not moved to repeal the death penalty in his state.

Now, I don't find anything offensive about any of that (Kaine's a supporter of abstinence education, which does trouble me), but he doesn't have easily definable, standard liberal positions. Those Clinton women who remain disconnected from Obama aren't going to be thrilled with the idea of a VP who's opposed to abortion, even if he's generally stood behind Roe. And the death penalty stance might hurt the campaign with rural voters.

Verdict: I like him more than Bayh for a couple of reasons. First, I think Virginia is more vulnerable than Indiana, and let's be honest, if Obama picks either of these fellows it's because he's casting a covetous eye on their electoral votes. Second, Kaine doesn't have Bayh's troublesome history with the Iraq War.

But at the risk of repeating myself, I still slot him behind Joe Biden and Bill Richardson on my short list. There's nothing exciting or inspiring about him. He has precious little name recognition outside of Virginia and the political cognoscenti. On my list he's roughly even with Sebelius; she's a more exciting candidate, but he hales from a more important state.

Oh, and one of my commenters points out that Kaine is a graduate of an area school, Rockhurst High. That's kind of cool.

The National Enquirer Gets One Right

Edwards Admits to Sexual Affair

OK, so maybe Evan Bayh isn't the worst possible VP option.

I Feel Like I Need a "This Sucks" Tag

Florida Tight End Cornelius Ingram Tears ACL

Seems pretty much official at this point. Urban Meyer hasn't confirmed it yet, but that seems like a technicality right now. Ingram's going to miss the 2008 season.

Losing Ingram is a big blow to the Florida offense, certainly. It tears a hole in UF's depth chart at the receiver/tight end position. When it looked like Ingram was jumping to the NFL after the 2007 season, I was worried about Florida's receiving corps. CI's decision to return to Gainesville assuaged that fear, but it's back now. The Gators are down to two proven receivers, Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy, and Harvin's coming back (by all accounts swimmingly) from a significant heel injury.

But Meyer and the rest of the coaching staff will probably be able to paper over Ingram's loss. Back-up tight end Aaron Hernandez is a sophomore who's ready to explode, and while having him forced up the depth chart at this point isn't an ideal situation, few teams could lose a guy like Ingram and replace him with a guy like Hernandez. And Florida's offense was not reliant on CI's 30-35 catches.

The football aspect of this isn't really what's on my mind right now, however. I'll get into greater depth in a few weeks when I write up a complete team preview.

No, I'm more concerned with Ingram himself. CI's gone through a lot in Gainesville. He arrived at UF in 2004 as a well-regarded athlete/dual threat quarterback and small forward. He lost that later designation fairly quickly and seriously considered transferring before moving to tight end prior to the Outback Bowl in 2006.

He spent 2006 and 2007 as a kind of tight end/wide receiver hybrid, played hard, caught some first down passes and was the leading receiver in both the 2006 SEC Championship Game and National Championship Game. There was some disappointment that he wasn't a more dominant offensive force, considering his impressive size and speed. But that always seemed a little petty.

Ingram had the chance to enter the NFL draft this April. Reports indicated he was leaning that way. But he decided to come back for a final year in Gainesville to try and improve his stock.

I don't want to overstate things here. His situation wasn't similar to the one faced by Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Al Horford after Florida won its first basketball championship in 2006. CI didn't turn his back on a first round draft choice, a six digit signing bonus and a long-term contract. He was a little soft and inexperienced to be a tight end, a little slow to be a wide receiver. He came back to spend a year as a true tight end and bump up his draft slot by a couple rounds.

Still, he was going to be drafted, and if he had worked his way onto the drafting team he would have had a nice payday. It's no small thing to say no to a lifelong dream and a six figure annual salary. But Ingram did that, and he was going to be a bigger part of this year's offense. The injury seems beyond cruel, and not just because he'll miss the season. It's hard to figure he'll be in high demand at the 2009 draft, considering he was projected as a late round pick this year and will be coming off an ACL tear.

There have been some grumblings that Ingram might petition the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility, but there's nothing official yet. I hope he does and I hope he's successful, but you can never rely on the NCAA to make a decision that'll help a student.

VP profile: Evan Bayh

Age: 53
Current Position: Junior senator from Indiana
Former Positions of Importance:

• Governor of Indiana, 1989-1997
• Indiana Secretary of State, 1987-1989

Bayh seems to have become the odds-on favorite in this little game. I linked a Washington Post story last week that put him in Obama's "Final Four," along with Virginia governor Tim Kaine, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius and Senator Joe Biden. But the speculation continues to swirl around Bayh. Some pundits even suggested Obama would name Bayh this week during his sweep through Indiana. Unless Obama pulls out a surprise announcement tonight, that seems unlikely. All the talking heads argue that Obama will either name a VP in the next couple of days or will wait a few weeks until the Olympics are over. I have a hard time imagining that the Summer Olympics will actually swallow up Barack Obama's vice-presidential choice and keep him from getting adequate news coverage, but hey, maybe that's why I'm sitting here blogging instead of shouting things on MSNBC.

Pros: Bayh's greatest asset is his inoffensiveness. If you come from the "do no harm" school of vice presidential selections, Bayh might be the perfect candidate. He's been around for awhile without earning opprobrium from any corners. Bayh's a pleasant personality, wonderfully safe, guaranteed to do nothing that will hurt the ticket.

Despite Bayh's relative youth he has an impressive governing resume, one that contains both legislative and executive experience. He was a popular two-term governor, easily winning election in 1988 and pulling 62 percent of the vote when he ran for re-election in 1994. As governor, he gained bi-partisan plaudits for "fiscal discipline."

After his tenure as governor, Bayh moved to Washington D.C. to take office as Indiana's junior senator. At this point he's serving on five different committees, including the Intelligence Committees and and the Armed Services Committee. So...yeah. That's something.

The Obama campaign might be looking at Evan Bayh through eyes that see only the number "11." That's the state of Indiana's contribution to our quirky little electoral college, and in a close election, those are 11 votes that could prove crucial. Indiana hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964; it gave George Bush an easy victory in 2004.

Obama thinks that might change this year. The Indianapolis Star reported, and the good folks at the mighty fun FiveThirtyEight.com have pointed out, that the Obama campaign has 14 field offices open in Indiana. McCain has none and has no plans to open any. The polls chronicled over at FiveThirtyEight indicate a small lead (four or five points) for McCain in Indiana. That's not insurmountable.

Bayh has deep roots in the state. The desk he occupies in the US Senate once belonged to his father, Birch Bayh. (No, really, that was his name) His re-election margin in 1994 was the widest in modern Indiana history, and he left the state house with an absurdly high approval rating. I'm generally skeptical of the influence a vice presidential pick can have on voters, but if that theory works for anyone, it works for Bayh.

Cons: "Bayh's greatest asset is his inoffensiveness?" Inspiring, isn't it? If Obama picks Bayh, he'll get a night of news coverage and nothing else. The VP newscycle ends with the following day's newspapers. Bayh is a sinfully boring pick, the kind of choice that does nothing to inspire or energize the base to come out on Election Day.

Bayh's most notable "achievement" in the Senate was co-sponsoring the Congress' joint resolution approving military action in Iraq. Bayh was, in fact, a strong supporter of the war and stood by the invasion while criticizing the Bush administration's conduct of it. That, along with Bayh's chairmanship of the religiously centrist Democratic Leadership Council, can only serve to annoy the liberals who largely carried Obama through the primary campaign.

Aside from the Iraq debacle, Bayh has no extraordinary achievements in the Senate. His tenure as Indiana's governor was impressive, but there's nothing about him that screams "heavyweight." He's not a package of "Instant Credibility: just add water!"

Bayh might come off as a blatant attempt to use the vice presidency as an election tool. Most presidential nominees do that, but this would be particularly hard to spin as anything other than a vote grab. It would feed into the Obama-as-lightweight narrative conjured by McCain.

Verdict: It appears Indiana's electoral votes and the desire to make a safe, uncontroversial pick are likely to win out. I understand it, but I don't particularly like it. Bayh might well force the McCain campaign to spend time and resources in Indiana. That's a big deal. But I remain unconvinced that he'll be able to actually deliver the state, and if that's the case, a close contest there could actually be dangerous for the campaign, enticing them with promises of a victory that's always just out of reach.

I prefer Joe Biden, who brings heft and intelligence. I much prefer Bill Richardson, but he doesn't appear to be a serious option.

Obama Steps Up

My post of a couple days ago notwithstanding, I'm generally an optimistic sort of fellow. I'm not delusional about it, and I think I'm capable of a healthy skepticism when it's a necessity. Still, I'm a believer in the idea of American greatness.

So I was thrilled to read the speech Obama gave on energy policy today at Michigan State University. While he didn't take my suggestion of sticking Tom Izzo on a hamster wheel and having him power Lansing during Spartan home games, Obama still did well this afternoon.

The aspects of the speech that have been making all the ledes are Obama's call to release 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the indication that he's willing to compromise on offshore drilling. I get why that's the case; those are policy shifts, and policy shifts are always interesting. (For a given definition of "interesting.")

I'm fairly skeptical of the SPR element, and in a perfect world offshore drilling wouldn't even be discussed as a serious solution to any problem. But Obama's position on drilling makes sense if you consider it within the context of his job as a legislator. Here's his statement:

Last week, Washington finally made some progress on this. A group of Democrat and Republican Senators sat down and came up with a compromise on energy that includes many of the proposals I’ve worked on as a Senator and many of the steps I’ve been calling for on this campaign. It’s a plan that would invest in renewable fuels and batteries for fuel-efficient cars, help automakers re-tool, and make a real investment in renewable sources of energy.

Like all compromises, this one has its drawbacks. It includes a limited amount of new offshore drilling, and while I still don’t believe that’s a particularly meaningful short-term or long-term solution, I am willing to consider it if it’s necessary to actually pass a comprehensive plan. I am not interested in making the perfect the enemy of the good – particularly since there is so much good in this compromise that would actually reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Obama is willing to compromise and accept something he doesn't like as part of a greater plan he does like. But look at what's he not doing here: he's not lying to the audience. He's not claiming that offshore drilling will solve their short term problems or America's larger issues. He is, instead, speaking as a senator who wants the best bill he can get but who isn't willing to torpedo a solid plan because it doesn't give him everything.

But while Obama spoke about expanding domestic oil production, most of the speech was a call for energy independence and a breaking of the chains that tie America to an oil-based economy.

I've written variations on this sentence before, but it's worth saying again this time: I'm not an expert on energy policy or alternative fuels. Obama called for the "end of the age of oil in our time." He wants to eliminate the country's need to import oil from Venezuela and the Middle East, and he wants to do it in 10 years.

I don't know if that's particularly plausible. It certainly sounds ambitious to my thoroughly amateur ears. I suspect it will be hard to pay for $150 billion Obama wants to invest over the next ten years to "build a new energy economy." I do think I know that $150 billion, in this arena, is a more of a good start than a complete investment.

He wants one million "150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years." He wants to raise fuel mileage standards four percent every year. He wants to provide four billion dollars in loans to help Ford and GM "re-tool their factories and build these cars."

That's far from a comprehensive list. In short, Obama wants a lot of things. Some of them are doable. Some of them are probably very not doable. The legitimate experts and the guys who like to scream at television cameras will hash that out.

But me, I'm pleased to see Obama set such lofty goals. I believe in a government that's ambitious and idealistic and that tries to achieve the extraordinary, even with the foreknowledge that it might well fail. Obama's calling for great steps to address a great problem. He's calling on the American government and the American people to actually try to accomplish something extraordinary. That's as important as the particular details. This speech offers a window into Obama's governing philosophy, and I rather like the view.

I like that he's set a foolhardy goal of energy independence within 10 years. It's no fun hurdling bars that are set artificially low. Conversely, it's not shameful to fall short when the bar is set one notch too high.

A Bad, Bad Day

Skip Caray Dies at Age 68

The Call.

This sucks.

It would be cloying and inaccurate to say that Caray's was the (distinctive, nasally) voice of my childhood. But during those 90's summers when the Braves were on TBS every night, it meant a lot to hear Skip call a game.

I never got a chance to hear him during his heyday in the 70's and 80's, when the Braves were epically bad and Skip was known to call the games in...something less than a fully sober state. No, I caught the largely clean Skip who covered those fantastic division-winning clubs.

He might not have been at his peak, but he was still more fun than a barrel of Larry Craigs. Caray was a homer, but the perfect kind of homer. He unabashedly rooted for the Braves without unfairly denigrating the other team or falling into obnoxiousness. ("You can put it on the board...SHUT UP YOU STUPID $@%!*# JACKASS!") Skip was never above taking good-natured shots at the organization paying his salary, and once got in hot water for pointing out how the Braves were widening the catcher's box in Turner Field.

His was a biting, witty style, and he put his imprint on the games he called without ever making them about him. He was Harry Caray's son, but instead of letting that define him or running away from it, he embraced it and still managed to forge his own path.

TBS tried to shove him out of the limelight and into the Turner South ghetto in the 2003 season as part of a greater effort to re-brand the station's telecast away from a Braves-centric approach and into "MLB On TBS", but their move was so wildly unpopular they had to reverse course at the All Star Break. Skip thumbed his nose at the network on his very first night back, welcoming fans to "Braves Baseball on TBS." It was a small thing, but this fan was thrilled to hear it.

Thanks for the memories Skip. You have permission to walk your dog, provided you promise to patronize Heaven's sponsors.

Wherein Andrew Whines

You might have noticed that I don't have a "personal" tag for any of my posts. That's because I fully intended to keep this blog free of my personal life. There are privacy concerns, to be sure, but mainly I just didn't want to talk about things like that. I was worried about boring you, and, frankly, I was worried about boring myself.

Well, I'm still worried about that, but it's late (or early) and right now I just want to write something.

I spent about an hour tonight trying to fall asleep without success. The idea that kept bouncing around my head was the realization that I couldn't remember the last time I had a good day. It's a small thing, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember the last time I had a legitimately good day.

Don't misunderstand. My life is hardly a blasted hell scape. I've had very few truly bad days since I lost my reporting gig back in January. (Yikes) I've got a pleasant roof over my head, food to eat and more than enough money socked away. I recognize that my life could be a lot worse than it is.

And yet, it cuts me that I can't recall when I last fell asleep in a good mood. Even in my situation, unemployment is a drain. The funny part here is that the day-to-day reality of my unemployment isn't unpleasant. I wake up. I surf the web and apply for any jobs that look remotely appropriate. I have lunch. I surf the web some more. I read. I watch TV. I surf the web some more. I update this blog. I eat dinner. I surf the web some more. I go to bed. Repeat.

Hell, some people would prefer that to work. No responsibility, no real stress. I get to keep up to date on political developments. I get to argue about the Braves and the Gators.

But by the end of the day I'm stuck with the realization that it's been a mental slide since those moments when I first checked my email. See, that's when I have a vaguely plausible belief that I'll find something life-changing in my inbox. A new job, the dream job, could be waiting for me. It's very exciting.

And after I sort through the inbox and discover no offers, the nothing that is my day can truly commence. I've peaked at 11:00 am.

If most of my days are uneventful, it just makes the few crummy ones all the worse. To give you some idea of the variety of jobs I'm applying for at this point, I'll tell you about a banner day I had a few weeks ago. In one afternoon I applied for a public affairs job at the FBI, a "communications specialist" gig at Boise State University and a straight reporter position at The Washington Blade. The Blade, by the bi, is a gay newspaper.

Against all logic, I actually became rather enthusiastic about the prospect of working in Boise, Idaho. A year and a half ago when I graduated from college, the idea of taking an office job in Idaho would have been laughable. But now, after about six months of unemployment, an economy in the tank and my chosen industry slowly dying, hey, Boise State seemed pretty damn cool. I worked in Baker County, Florida, after all. Boise's a real city with restaurants and movie theaters and a university. I'd get a chance to do some writing; press releases, internal communications, articles for those silly alumni magazines with names like Boise Today and Buckin' Bronco!. Not a bad job, all things considered.

I found out Thursday that I wasn't getting the job; the good folks up there were nice enough to send an email to the rejected, which is an appreciated courtesy. I also received a rejection letter from The Lawrence Journal-World later in the day.

It was strange, how much that bothered me. A job in Idaho and a newspaper position I had forgotten I had even applied for combined to throw me into a funk. Not a "find the closest thing to a cliff in Kansas and throw yourself off it" funk, but definitely a "spend 15 minutes reading the same sentence in the book you're holding" kind of funk.

I guess I never really thought of myself as unemployable. I had a lot of advantages growing up, not the least of which being two parents who considered a college education to be a standard cost of raising a child. I graduated in December 2006 and had a job offer by late January 2007. I started that in March 2007. About six months later, exactly on the timeline I had imagined in my most optimistic projections, I had the chance to interview for a fantastic job at another organization.

For obvious reasons I won't mention what organization. But the job fell through, and, after a series of boring events, I lost the job I had.

That was in January of this year. And I haven't had a good day since.

The Negative Campaign Dance

McCain Says Obama Plays Race Card

The McCain campaign won July 31, and they carried the day by expertly reversing a current that had begun to flow against them.

Obama made these comments in Springfield, Missouri on Wednesday:

“So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Mr. Obama said in Springfield, Mo., echoing earlier remarks. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making."

As many have pointed out, it's not the first time in recent days that Obama has made similar remarks. But the McCain camp eagerly seized on them Thursday; McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, accused Obama of playing the "race card" from "the bottom of the deck." I'm not entirely sure how a card from the top of the race deck differs from a card at the bottom of the race deck, but that's a pointless digression.

Why did McCain and his staffers jump on this when they did? There could be a thousand reasons, but I think it was a clever attempt to shift the topic of conversation and push the newscycle into a territory Obama dreads.

I posted on this subject earlier, but before Thursday's "race card" controversy, the media had begun to focus intensely on the new tactics displayed by McCain's campaign. From McCain's brutal "rather lose a war" attack to a series of negative ads widely derided as immature and inaccurate, the McCain camp resembled an eight year old sitting in the cockpit of an F-16, desperately pushing buttons in an effort to make the damn thing go.

That's a complete exaggeration. The polls showed McCain very competitive nationally and gaining ground in several key battleground states.

Shut up. I like the mental image.

Anyway, even an old McCain hand like John Weaver was publicly shaking his head at the strategy McCain had adapted. Many seemed particularly offended at a McCain ad alleging that Obama flipped off the troops in Germany and sneaked away to snort coke off a German dominatrix's thigh-high boots. The narrative had become "John McCain is a mean dude."

But with one press release, Davis changed the discussion, such as it is. McCain is still on the attack, but his people managed to craft an attack based on the idea that the campaign was responding to an unfair strike from Obama.

Reading the Obama quote, it's hard to discern actually who he's referring to when he mentions "they." The campaign spin will probably be that he was talking about those nameless, shapeless forces who spread false rumors about Obama's religion, patriotism and personal history.

If he was referring specifically to the McCain campaign the picture gets muddier. I would argue that McCain certainly has been questioning Obama's patriotism and loyalty. He's denied it, to be sure, but as I've argued before, there are very few ways to read "he'd rather lose a war than an election," and none of them speak highly of Obama's love of country.

But McCain has consciously avoided overt racial attacks. Some have argued that his most recent ad, putting video of Obama with images of Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears, plays on the classic "black man with blond white women" racist dynamic. I think that's probably reading too far into the (thoroughly silly) commercial, but then again, maybe it's a completely accurate reading. I don't know.

What I do know is that Davis and the rest of McCain's campaign have succeeded in shifting the context of that ad and the others recently shown around the country. Check out this passage from the Times link above:

Mr. Davis’s comments came as the McCain campaign has adopted a far more aggressive, negative posture toward Mr. Obama in recent days, trying to define him as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. But until this week, the McCain campaign had not invoked race.

Mr. Obama has been the victim of some racist and racially tinged attacks this year, particularly during the primaries.

Underground e-mail campaigns have spread the false rumor that he is Muslim and questioned his patriotism by falsely charging that he does not put his hand over his heart when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. A button spotted outside the Texas Republican convention asked, “If Obama Is President ... Will We Still Call It the White House?”

But Mr. McCain has condemned racist campaigning and has denounced Republican groups that tried to make an issue of inflammatory statements made by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and one of his own supporters who referred to Mr. Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” at a McCain rally.

There's nothing wrong with that reporting. But see how the narrative has changed? We're no longer talking about McCain ridiculously placing blame for high gas prices on Obama, or his accusations of disloyalty or his "Obama hates the troops" spot. Now we're talking about a campaign where both sides are launching dubious attacks; sure, McCain is almost calling Obama a traitor, but Obama is unfairly calling McCain a racist. Look at those two. Tsk tsk. McCain's attacks get folded into a much larger story. They're lost in the shuffle and get banished from the front page.

There's little more dangerous in journalism than a moral equivalency; it afflicts reporting in the Middle East, and it's always been a problem for political reporters, most of whom are trying their hardest to write objectively. You can see what the reporters are doing in that passage above: acknowledge the false attacks launched at Obama, but defend McCain as playing no role in them.

The last four paragraphs of the story detail charges from both McCain's camp and the Hillary Clinton campaign that Obama's people have done this kind of thing before. Steve Schmidt, another high-ranking McCain aide, is quoted. So is Howard Wolfson, former Clinton communications director. So now the race card accusation is bi-partisan, lending credence to McCain's claims.

All in all, a fine bit of work from McCain's campaign. They ameliorated the criticism coming their way for the attack ads, and they did it without retreating one step from those ads.

VP Profile: Aaron Burr

Age: 80. Or 252.
Current Position: Supine.
Former Positions of Importance:

• Vice President, 1800-1804
• Senator, 1791-1797
• New York State Attorney General, 1789-1791

Pros: Brings definite experience and gravitas to the ticket, though at this point it's unlikely that Burr has any weight to lend Obama. The Illinois senator is something of a constitutional scholar, and Burr, who was around for the drafting of the Constitution, should help him hone his views on controversial issues.

An acclaimed veteran of the Revolutionary War, Burr should help blunt the hammer blows when McCain's supporters bring up the Arizona senator's Vietnam heroism. On a related note, those rural voters who cling to guns will be quite impressed with Burr's second amendment position. It might not make them vote for Obama, but they might be disinclined to get out of bed on Election Day and pull the lever next to McCain's name.

While McCain talks up his own foreign policy experience, it pales in comparison to what Burr went through in his day. McCain's war heroism is impressive, but even he hasn't tried to overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest and set himself up as emperor. "Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee" doesn't sound particularly impressive now, does it? Should Obama attempt to launch such a plot, Burr could provide invaluable advice and expertise.

That list of former positions is quite impressive, and betrays a depth of knowledge and experience. Very few men can claim to have been vice president, a senator and a state attorney general. And that's without mentioning his impressive list of state offices.

Burr was known in his day as a passionate advocate for women's rights, at one point introducing a bill in the New York State Senate that would have allowed them to vote. A Burr nomination would go a long way toward alleviating the hostilities between Obama's campaign and those female Clinton supporters who remain angry about the primary.

He has never been convicted of treason. Not once.

Burr is not a member of Obama's party, which will be somewhat awkward for the DNC, but will also go a long way toward proving that Obama's committed to changing the rules in Washington. What better way to show your bi-partisan credentials than giving the number two spot in your administration to someone who doesn't belong to your party?

Cons: Not technically "alive," in the sense of one's heart beating and circulating blood to one's various extremities. That could pose a few problems for the campaign in terms of Burr's effectiveness and ability to connect with voters. Plus, Burr's presence on the ticket could blunt concerns many have about McCain's age. Voters who are worried about McCain's advanced age can only be put off by the nomination of an 80 or 252 year old.

Much like Clinton, he would bring nothing to the ticket in terms of geographic appeal. New York is safe, as is the rest of the northeast. It is true that Burr has spent time in the American Southwest, and it's also true that the region is considered up-for-grabs this year. But Burr has a different definition of "southwest" than most modern Americans.

Other than that, I see no cons. Burr has no real baggage that I'm aware of.

Verdict: I don't know if Obama has the guts to make this kind of choice. It would certainly cause a buzz, and he would dominate the news for weeks, but I can't deny that it would be a risk. The media hates to be wrong, and no one is talking about Burr. It would hurt the pundits' egos, and that's always a dangerous game.

Waving the White Flag

Braves deal Teixeira to Angels for Kotchman, minor leaguer

The "minor leaguer" is Stephen Marek. Despite his last name, he is not an evil overlord or supervillain. He is, however, a 24-year-old reliever with some decent numbers in Double-A. (11.13 K/9, just two home runs in 43 2/3 innings and a vaguely acceptable walk rate) He had a great year in 2006 as a starter but has worked entirely as a reliever this season. Baseball America tabbed Marek has the sixth best prospect in the Angels organization. He's something more than a generic arm, but mostly, he's just a guy.

The "prize" here is first baseman Casey Kotchman, proud owner of a .287/.327/.448 line for the Angels. That's good for a 105 OPS+. For his career, he's hit .274/.337/.426. He's drawn only 18 walks in 373 at-bats. Kotchman has never been a power guy, and he doesn't project to ever be one.

So that's the bad news. The good news is that Kotchman's just 25 years old and put up a pretty solid .296/.372/.467 line for the Angels last year. For his career he's struck out only 108 times against exactly 100 walks; the decline in his plate discipline this year is kind of a mystery. He was one of those Angels prospects in the early-to-mid 00's who seemed to make Baseball America for about 13 consecutive years. Kotchman hit .325/.401/.493 in the minors while being age appropriate for the various levels at which he played. He'll probably get better, if not from natural age-related improvement then from the transition to the National League.

This is a completely unexciting deal, but likely the best Atlanta was going to get, considering both Teixeira's rent-a-player status and the Braves' need to acquire a young, Major League ready first baseman. Without Kotchman, the Braves would have to turn to a thoroughly depressing option like Greg Norton or Scott Thorman or Sid Bream. It certainly looks abysmal compared to the handful of treasure chests the Braves shipped off to Texas last year, but that was a different context. Besides, it's Atlanta's own damn fault for giving up that much in the first place.

If nothing else this deal demonstrates that Frank Wren has enough common sense to recognize a lost season when he sees one. He might turn around and trade for Jason Bay, but even that deal would be targeted at 2009 instead of this season. I can only hope he'll go all the way and attempt to find buyers for Will Ohman and Mark Kotsay. Ohman in particular should draw quite a bit of interest from lefty starved clubs.

Vice Presidential Speculation

Washington Post Outlines Obama's Options

The story focuses on Virginia governor Tim Kaine, about whom I know precious little. But it also includes a few other names. Aside from Kaine, the main options seem to be:

• Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana
• Senator Joe Biden from Delaware
• Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas

Christopher Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Sam Nunn get cursory mentions. The report labels Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed as "longshots."

I'll have to do some reading up on Bayh and Kaine, but especially the latter.

John McCain Disappoints

When it became clear that this general election would be contested by Barack Obama and John McCain, there was at least some hope that the campaign would be different than what we had seen in recent years. Maybe it wouldn't be two white knights waging a noble battle. But there was reason to believe that the two would, at the very least, maintain a decent, respectful tone and keep disagreements substantive.

Obviously, that hasn't happened. Obama is not a helpless victim here; he's played a role in the disintegration of the campaign's uniqueness. He backed out on the idea of participating in joint town halls with McCain. He's reversed himself on public financing in an effort to raise ungodly amounts of money. His campaign has established rapid response teams that rival those assembled by the 2000/2004 Bush campaigns.

All of those moves are justifiable and understandable, but they have had the effect of rendering this campaign a thoroughly conventional affair. Obama might be a unique candidate, and I believe he is, but there's nothing unique about the campaign around him.

But it's McCain who has taken the most decisive step into the muck. You've undoubtedly heard by now the allegation that he slung at Obama:

"I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war," John McCain said during a Rochester, N.H., town meeting on July 22. "It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

I wanted to give this comment time to simmer. I wanted to give McCain some time to re-think the line and, if not apologize for it, and least quietly let it slip into the ether. He has not. In fact, the allegation has become a go-to attack in his speeches and interviews. Instead of abandoning it, he has embraced the line and reiterated his belief in its validity.

So let's be perfectly clear about what McCain is saying. Break down the statement, remove the parallelism used as a rhetorical flourish, and McCain is saying, "Barack Obama knows The Surge is a success. He knows it will ultimately result in victory. He knows that reversing that policy and withdrawing troops from Iraq under his timetable will result in defeat. But he is deliberately advocating a strategy he knows will end with an American defeat because he thinks it's the popular choice."

That might not quite rise to the level of a treason accusation leveled by one sitting senator against another. But it's darn close, and it certainly alleges disloyalty. It certainly says that Obama is unwilling to defend his country.

What's bizarre is that McCain has been leveling a perfectly legitimate, Surge-oriented attack on Obama for weeks, often in the same speeches where he later uses the "rather lose a war" line. It's not hard to tell the difference.

Attack One: Senator Obama opposed The Surge, which I championed and which has been a stunning success in reducing violence in Iraq. That goes directly to evaluations of our judgment and military wisdom. Furthermore, Senator Obama has refused to acknowledge The Surge's success, showing a Bush-esque stubbornness and unwillingness to adapt his views to changing circumstances.

Attack Two: Barack Obama knows The Surge is a success. He knows it will ultimately result in victory. He knows reversing that policy and withdrawing troops from Iraq under his timetable will result in defeat. But he is deliberately advocating a strategy he knows will end with an American defeat because he thinks it's the popular choice.

Attack One is a harsh, but entirely legitimate attack. Intelligence and judgment are key for any president, and a presidential campaign should be about discerning which candidate shows themselves superior in those qualities. McCain is well within his rights to question Obama's strategic wisdom. I quite obviously disagree with the details of his argument, but it's not an argument that crosses any sort of line.

Attack Two reads like it was crafted by Karl Rove, and it's the route McCain has decided to travel. It's a relic of the 2002 midterm campaign and the 2004 presidential campaign. It's an attack that doesn't focus on the other guy's intelligence or his policies. It attempts to eviscerate his patriotism and convince the public that Obama is simply not committed to American success overseas.

It is, in short, a brutal, flagrantly out-of-bounds smear. The Bush administration has spent the last eight years accusing all who dissent or disagree of disloyalty or, at the very best, an extreme lack of patriotism. There was reason to hope that John McCain wouldn't stoop to those levels. Tragically, he has disabused us of those notions.

VP Profile: Joe Biden

Age: 66 going on Time.
Current Position: Senator from Delaware
Former Positions of Importance: None

Pros: You want weight on the ticket? Heft? Credibility? Biden's your guy. Summarizing his credentials as "senator from Delaware" is doing Biden a grave disservice. He has the sixth-longest tenure in the Senate and chairs the Foreign Relations Committee. He's on the Judiciary committee and heads the subcommittee on Crime and Drugs. He played a crucial role in the run-up to the Kosovo conflict of the late 90's.

In short, there are no options out there for Obama who would do more than Biden to add gravitas to the ticket. Biden is a legitimately intelligent man with good ideas and an agile mind. After one of the primary debates his campaign assembled a fairly amusing video containing a couple dozen instances of the various candidates saying some version of "Joe is Right." He could contribute in a big way to an Obama administration.

Oh, and this factor tends to get ignored in these discussions, but should something tragic happen to a President Obama, Biden could assume the office and hit the ground running. Obama would have left the country in good hands. (Obviously that's a macabre thought, but we're talking about the vice president here. "Take over in case something macabre happens" is pretty much the guy's job description)

Biden has a sharp tongue and could handle the attack dog role typically associated with the vice presidential candidate. He rather famously eviscerated Rudy Giuliani in one of the debates, and his takedown of John Ashcroft back in 2004 was quite impressive.

Cons: "Hi, I'm Barack Obama. I earned the trust, love and votes of millions of young people by promising them a change in the stultified culture of Washington D.C. My youthful appearance, impressive oratory and unorthodox biography convinced those voters that I meant what I said about changing Washington and taking the levers of power from the old white men who had been in office for decades.

"And on a completely unrelated note, let me introduce you to my nominee for the office of vice president, Joe Biden! He was in Washington when slaves built the White House and chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee back when the gravest threat to our national security were the Barbary Pirates. Hope you don't consider that a disappointment or a betrayal in any way."

There's also a fear that choosing someone like Biden (or Sam Nunn or Chuck Hagel) because of their experience could backfire on Obama. The message you want to send is that an Obama administration would include people who actually know how Washington runs. The message you risk sending is that when the phone rings at 3:00 am in the White House, it'll be Biden and not Obama who handles the crisis. If Biden comes off as more a babysitter than an adviser, Obama will look small and unworthy of the position.

Biden likes to talk. In this era of YouTube, 24 hours news networks and rapid response teams, Biden's admirable willingness to speak his mind and run his mouth is quite refreshing. He doesn't curl up into a ball and spout safe, uncontroversial catchphrases. It's impressive. It's also incredibly dangerous, as Biden himself can tell you. We all remember the "clean, articulate" gaffe he committed on the very day he declared his candidacy. That's a pretty poor way to kick off a campaign.

There's always going to be a fear that some rapscallion with dark hair will heckle Biden at a campaign event and Biden will respond by calling the kid a "dago." That's a good way to lose several newscycles.

Doesn't bring any geographic appeal to the ticket. Delaware's voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since 1992, the rest of the Northeast is solidly in Obama's camp and even if Delaware was in play it only carries three electoral votes.

Verdict: Not the odds-on favorite, but still a solid option. The babysitter dynamic is a tricky problem, but skillful campaigning can send the message that yes, an Obama administration will change things, even if the vice president is an old hand. Regardless, it's unlikely that many of Obama's young supporters will desert him simply because he chose a 66 year old as his running mate. Picking Biden would show how seriously Obama takes the VP's office and how dedicated he is to putting a top-notch intellect in the position.

Biden has also been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State for Obama.

The Dark Knight: Telling You What You Already Know

The Dark Knight is a good movie. You should see it.

That's pretty much all that's left to say about the latest installment in the revived Batman series. The riotous reviews have been flowing in from all corners. Professional critics love it. Pretentious amateur critics (hi!) love it. Comic book fanboys love it and proclaim it the best superhero movie of all time. On opening weekend it hauled in roughly the annual GDP of Belarus. Hell, we haven't even really seen the expected backlash yet; the movie's been out for a little more than a week and Slate hasn't published a contrarian column labeling it a scourge. So that's impressive.

First of all, let's establish what The Dark Knight isn't. It isn't the greatest movie ever, which is what the rankings on IMDB say. It isn't a once-in-a-lifetime experience you'll regret missing when you're in your deathbed. In that regard, the hype needs to be deflated just a little.

But the hype, the critical reaction, it's all irrelevant. The movie itself is all that matters. And The Dark Knight is legitimately outstanding.

The late Heath Ledger and his portrayal of The Joker has been the focus of many reviews. Again, the hype is slightly overinflated. Ledger's excellent and throws himself into the role so completely that the identity of the actor would be impossible to discern without any foreknowledge. Ledger's Joker is a cackling, clumsily made-up force of nature. He's an urban forest fire, an inferno with no real motivation. He has no origin story. He's simply a monster who has set his eyes on Gotham and Batman. So yes, Ledger's fantastic, but it's hard not to wonder if the delirious reviews are motivated in part by the actor's tragic death.

Ledger certainly stands out, in no small part because the nature of the role allows him to find a psychopathic glee that's amazing to watch. But he's not the only actor to turn in a great performance. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman do their parts to add heft and credibility to the summer blockbuster, and to their credit they take the job seriously.

Christian Bale does an admirable job carrying a tough role. He was allowed to stretch his legs a little and explore the difficult Bruce Wayne/Batman dynamic in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan's initial entry in the Batman reboot. Bruce doesn't play as large a role in The Dark Knight, and Bale spends most of his time in the suit and mask; it's rather hard to convey emotion with only your eyes and a digitally enhanced voice. (That digital enhancement, by the way, is a little over-the-top in the movie and can make the actor's lines inaudible, especially when spoken over the soaring score.) But Bale takes advantage of the "Bruce Wayne- playboy" scenes when he has them and continues to delve into the deep-seated conflict between the billionaire and the bat without falling into angst.

Maggie Gyllenhaal thankfully replaces Katie Holmes as assistant district attorney and superhero love interest Rachael Dawes. She doesn't distinguish herself, but she's a solid improvement over the one glaring fault in Begins.

But Aaron Eckhardt deserves some real plaudits for his performance as district attorney Harvey Dent. He deftly handles Dent's arc, the gradual evolution of the crime-fighting, hard-charging white knight into something far more complicated. Eckhardt plays the role with genuine skill, and in some ways it's a pity he gets over-shadowed by Ledger's turn as The Joker.

The movie is two and a half dark hours. The first half of that running time is surprisingly slow and more than a little disappointing. If you go in with extraordinary expectations, the early returns aren't promising. Don't worry- it gets better. A lot better. Because halfway through The Dark Knight takes a turn that is shocking, effective and, well, pretty damn dark. Nolan plays the moment with all the skill of a violin virtuoso.

Nolan also did well in overhauling his fight scenes, which were widely panned in Batman Begins. He uses fewer sharp cuts in murky, claustrophobic environments and as a result causes far fewer headaches for the viewer. It's now possible to discern what's happening when two characters are trying to kill each other.

I don't know if this is "the greatest superhero movie ever," but it's not an irrational position. It's certainly better than Iron Man or Spider-Man 2, both of which were given that label when they were released. Regardless, don't be turned off by the hype.