BIDEN FROM ABROAD

Posted at 7:34 p.m. ET

I've written here before that foreign journalists, usually British, often have a clearer view of our politics than do American writers.  Here's an example, an assessment of Obama's choice of Biden, by William Rees-Mogg in The Times of London:

Joe Biden has one crucial qualification to be the next vice-president of the United States, at least in the eyes of Barack Obama. He is not Hillary Clinton. Mr Obama has made the opposite decision to the one made by another young and relatively inexperienced Senator in 1960. John F.Kennedy distrusted and detested Lyndon Johnson, but he asked him to become his running- mate in the election because he thought that Johnson would help to deliver the Texas vote. He did, and Texas was one of the key states that took Kennedy into the White House.

Senator Biden is no Hillary Clinton; he presents no threat though little promise to Mr Obama. In the primary elections, Mrs Clinton gained 18 million votes. Among women she had a devoted following - and who still believe she should have been the candidate. If she had been on the ticket, she would have brought a lot of votes with her, as did Johnson. In rejecting her as his running-mate, Mr Obama has taken the risk that his margin of victory might be wiped out.

Well stated.  I'd have one little quibble:  Hillary would have cost some votes as well, so we really can't predict the outcome had she been on the ticket.

This was, no doubt, a difficult choice. If Mr Obama had chosen Mrs Clinton, the Clintons might have overshadowed his campaign. Their baggage, particularly Bill Clinton's past scandals, might have been embarrassing. Like Johnson, Bill Clinton is a big political figure. One can understand that Mr Obama wanted to emphasise that he was his own man. Yet in rejecting Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama may have lost the White House. Many Democrats do believe that.

The key point he makes is that Obama was not capable of choosing someone as large, or larger, than he is.  Kennedy could do it.  He swallowed hard, as I recall, but did it.

And the writer has another problem with Biden:

In 1987 Joe Biden was already a senior member of the US Senate. He held the post of chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Senate committee that has to approve nominations to the Supreme Court. On July 1, President Ronald Reagan announced the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court...

...Two months before the hearings even started The New York Times reported Mr Biden as saying that he “would oppose the nomination and would lead the fight in the senate”. He had not yet heard any of the evidence. He subsequently published the Biden Report, which again misrepresented Judge Bork's legal position; it is a merely partisan document. On October 23 the Senate rejected the nomination. Whoever else got justice, Judge Bork did not.

This won't be a big issue with most Americans.  But it could rally McCain's conservative base, which regards the Bork rejection as a defining moment in the building of the conservative coalition.  It could also upset some Catholics.  Biden presents himself as a good Catholic, but opposition to Bork was based heavily on Bork's anti-abortion views.  As the writer concludes:

Mr Biden's nomination as vice- president may or may nor reignite this issue. Yet Mr Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987; he did play a leading part in a grossly unfair campaign against the nomination of Judge Bork; he does exploit his Catholic religion as part of his political appeal. His handling of the Bork nomination was an abuse of office for which he has never apologised.

All right, let's see how far this goes.  I haven't seen the Bork issue mentioned yet in any American paper, but I suspect it's coming.  It's entirely legitimate.

August 24, 2008.