Mike Gravel! Joe Biden! TomTrancredoDuncanHunterBobForeheadSamBrownback. Chris Dodd.
But seriously, Mike Gravel? I was listening to C-Span radio on Saturday and there he was live at the DNC I thought I was keeping up with the candidates but I honestly had no idea the former Senator from Alaska was in the race.
Did he sound like an inspirational, acerbic critic of present politics and ready to fufill the promise of the post-Vietnam era? Well, no. But if Mike Gravel can run for President, than Bruce Reed is right and I am right--anyone can run, or think they can run.
As a nerdy teen I was thrilled to discover at what used to be called the Barnes & Noble Sale Annex in New York the complete seven volume, 500 page each hardcover version of the Senator Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers. marked down to 89 cents a volume. Turned out the version published by the New York Times, which I nerdily awaited during a family vacation in Vermont was incomplete. (What other twelve year olds were calling book stores all day asking if the Pentagon Papers were released yet? Thank you, Mad Tom Bookstore!)
In what was then an act of courage and opposition to the Vietnam War, the Alaska Democrat released even more papers than Dan Ellsberg gave to the Times, for which I suppose he's owed a little trip town vanity boulevard.
But Joe Biden? You've probably read some of these columns about Biden's "Macaca Moment." What did he mean that Barack Obama is "clean?" (and as this article from the New York Times observes, that may be only the second most offensive word he used).
a: has better hair than Al Sharpton
b: doesn't piss off white liberals like Al Sharpton and occasionally Jesse Jackson
c: isn't tainted by financial scandals, viz. Sharpton and Jackson
d: has a good clear shot at winning, without the race card automatically dealt against him
All of the above. But one thing more. Biden is a big lummox. A towering idiot in a city of mental midgets. I know someone who met with him a long time ago and swore, "he was scratching his balls during the meeting!" Who's going to get excited about a Joe Biden candidacy? I know, I know, that's what we said about Kerry...and we were right..but at least he had heroism on his side.
I"m still betting on Hillary.
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