{"id":1028,"date":"2008-08-23T03:21:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T10:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2008-08-23T03:21:42","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T10:21:42","slug":"barack-obama-picks-joe-biden-so-does-john-mccain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1028","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama Picks Joe Biden – So Does John McCain"},"content":{"rendered":"

It didn’t take long for news of Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate to stir John McCain’s campaign PR machine. The first comments<\/a> from McCain’s people were released quickly and contained a fair measure of respect for Biden himself. In fact, they relied wholly on Biden’s assessment of Obama when they were competing for the Democratic nomination:<\/p>\n

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be President.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly McCain has admiration for Biden’s opinions. So McCain presumably would agree just as vigorously with Biden’s assessment of him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“John McCain remains wedded to the Bush Administration’s myopic view of a world defined by terrorism […] It’s time for a fundamental change, but that’s going to require more than a great soldier. It’s going to require a wise leader” […] “We cannot keep treading water without exhausting ourselves and more importantly doing great damage to our other vital interests around the world and at home. And that’s exactly what President Bush and a President McCain would be asking us to do.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently there has been no harsher critic of McCain’s lack of judgment than Joe Biden. McCain can hardly praise Biden’s insight with regard to Obama yet dismiss it with regard to himself. Therefore, McCain must agree that his own world view is myopic, unwise, and damaging to our country’s interests.<\/p>\n

McCain’s surrogates on his staff and in the press are also busy spinning the Biden announcement. Most of the criticism falls into two categories:<\/p>\n

1) The selection of Biden, with his strong foreign policy credentials, is an admission on the part of Obama that he is weak in those areas.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure they will apply the same logic when McCain selects, for instance, Mitt Romney, concluding that Romney’s economic skills affirms McCain’s ignorance in financial matters.<\/p>\n

2) Biden is gaffe-prone due to his willingness to say whatever is on his mind.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In some circles that is called “straight talk”<\/em> and is painted on the sides of campaign buses.<\/p>\n

There is speculation amongst the pundit class that McCain will shortly have ads on the air featuring Biden saying nasty things about Obama. If I were advising the Obama media team, I would suggest that they do it first – with a touch of humor – and add Biden’s more recent criticisms of McCain. This is the inoculation school of campaign advertising and would take the sting out of McCain’s attempts to exploit remarks made by Biden when he was seeking the party’s nomination himself. And of course, be ready with ads of McCain’s VP choice knocking him down a peg or two. Almost every Republican has in the past year, so it would be easy to compile.<\/p>\n

Isn’t politics fun?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It didn’t take long for news of Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate to stir John McCain’s campaign PR machine. The first comments from McCain’s people were released quickly and contained a fair measure of respect for Biden himself. In fact, they relied wholly on Biden’s assessment of Obama […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[183,377,103],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-joe-biden","tag-john-mccain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-gA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1029,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1029","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":0},"title":"What Republicans Think Of John McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/24\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"John McCain has released a flurry of hastily produced ads following the announcement of Joe Biden as Barack Obama's running mate. The ads feature Democrats, including Biden saying uncomplimentary things about Obama. But mostly they feature the desperation of McCain as he grasps for something with which to prop up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1073,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1073","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":1},"title":"Frantic Conservatives Trying To Ditch The Sarah Palin Debate","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/1\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's face it. They have a right to be scared. Conservative activists have seen Sarah Palin humiliate herself and her Party repeatedly. She can't name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads, or cite a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade, or give an example of McCain's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1050,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1050","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":2},"title":"Fox News Uses McCain Front Group To Blast Obama","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/10\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A report was broadcast on Fox News today (and published on FoxNews.com) that purported to be an examination of the congressional earmarks of the presidential candidates. As one might expect, the report fell something short of what a reasonable person would call \"fair and balanced.\" Correspondent William La Jeunesse's report\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1220,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1220","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Deception Jumps Completely Off The Scale","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/16\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a month after Fox News was caught reading verbatim from a Republican press release and presenting it as a news story, they have now dipped into territory that is so thoroughly unethical that it boggles the mind. Media Matters caught a segment hosted by Martha MacCallum wherein she presented\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1597,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1597","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":4},"title":"This Is A Big Fucking Deal?","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/23\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"President Obama signed the Senate health care bill into law this morning. While it is not the bill I would have written, it was still an historic moment that achieved something that 18 previous presidents failed to achieve. But for much of the media, led by Fox News, the hot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1112,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1112","url_meta":{"origin":1028,"position":5},"title":"Barack Obama Uprising \/ John McCain Pushing Daisies","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/30\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night Barack Obama aired a 30 minute advertisement showcasing the struggles and hopes of four American families, while summarizing the policies he has been articulating throughout his campaign. The ad was considered an expensive and risky proposition. Nothing like it had been attempted since Ross Perot's economics lessons 16\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}