Biden?  Biden was an insult to women at the Clarence Thomas hearings, and the NRO people are absolutely shameless enough to bring that sort of thing up.

It gives me such pleasure to know that Bill Kristol considers me A Problem.

We can determine from Kristol’s Law of Perpetual Wrongness that (a) Clinton was consulted—courteously even—and (b) Biden’s and Clinton’s foreign policy experience is not comparable.

If you Democrats keep screwing around you will have Mc Shame for president and then you all will be wondering what the f—-k happened

(shrug) Obama’s underwhelming on women’s issues too.  To give him credit where credit is due, I haven’t noticed him trying to pretend otherwise—his whole tack has been “I’m better on them than McCain,” which can’t be argued with.  So Biden’s a consistent choice from that perspective.

1. Biden voted against Clarence Thomas’s confirmation.

2. Biden was caught between a rock and a hard place. Unlike, say, Packwood, Thomas was not a serial harasser. Anita was the only woman to come forward, with at most one more woman rumored to be a victim. Therefore her credibility suffered. The incongruity of the statements her boss made didn’t help either—Long Dong Silver and the pubic hair on a Coke can are all I can recall. Instead of looking like the Voice of Truth, Hill appeared more like a lone wacko with a grudge.

Amanda, it’s already happening. The resulting music is depressing.

The guy is a solid Democrat, much more solid than any other pick on Obama’s radar (including, arguably, Hillary Clinton).

Hes not Dennis Kucinich, no, but he isn’t a milquetoast DLCer either.

Anyone from Delaware can tell you hes been on the right side of civil rights 99% of the time since way back in the early 70s during the busing controversy when he was on County Council in New Castle.

We could have had Evan Bayh, who was on the neocon Committee to Liberate Iraq along with such luminaries as Norm Coleman and Joe Lieberman.

We could have had Timmeh Kaine, who is luekwarm (at best!) on choice, AWOL on affirmative action, and endorses gay marriage bans.

Biden is leagues ahead of either.

“Ex Patriate, periods end sentences. “

Just had a question, oftentimes I will see trolls attacked and their grammar ridiculed. Why is that particular form of attack so popular? Grammar on blogs, especially in responses, is always weak yet I never see a grammar attack on people I agree with, only the trolls, why is that? Sure most of the trolls are idiots but even the best among us make unintelligent posts, I just have never seen the reasoning on attacking a trolls grammar if the same isnt done to everyone. Sure I could see it as an attempt to highlight their stupidity but we’re all guilty of that from time to time, just find it interesting.

Amanda, so we weigh the BAIPA vote against the following quotes:

“I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.”

From the Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency:

Q.  HAVE YOU EVER VOTED TO LIMIT OR REDUCE ABORTIONS?

A.  I AM IN FAVOR, FOR EXAMPLE, OF LIMITS ON LATE

TERM ABORTIONS IF THERE IS AN EXCEPTION FOR THE

MOTHER’S HEALTH.  NOW FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOSE

WHO, YOU KNOW, ARE PRO LIFE, I THINK THEY WOULD

CONSIDER THAT INADEQUATE.  AND I RESPECT THEIR VIEWS.

I MEAN ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I’VE ALWAYS SAID IS THAT

ON THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE, IF YOU BELIEVE THAT LIFE

BEGINS AT CONCEPTION, THEN—AND YOU ARE CONSISTENT IN

THAT BELIEF, THEN I CAN’T ARGUE WITH YOU ON THAT

BECAUSE THAT IS A CORE ISSUE OF FAITH FOR YOU.

If you have warm fuzzies after hearing all that, okay.  I don’t.  I’m not slamming Obama—I’m just being realistic about him.  As I said before, it can’t be denied that he’s better for women’s issues than McCain.

Amanda, what you seem to be saying is that Obama’s not a principled feminist and will tend to put political considerations first.  I tend to agree with that, but I also tend to see that as a problem.

Ben, or we could have had another powerhouse Senator with tons of experience, tons of influence, and who campaigns her ass off, and who’s also rock-solid on women’s issues.  Enumerating the really awful possibilities doesn’t make the better ones go away. 

There were myriad trade-offs here and I have no doubt that it was an extremely difficult decision guaranteed to piss someone off, but gosh I’m getting a little tired of women being the first to be discarded when these trade-offs are made.

Melinda-

I have no doubt Hillary would have been picked if Bill had been willing to disclose his foundation deals since he left the Presidency. He didn’t want to be vetted like the require *every other spouse* to be vetted. That was a problem.

I don’t think Hillary is any more left than Biden. They’re around the same place on the spectrum, ideologically.

We have a good, solid Democratic ticket this year. The most solid in a long, long time.

Correction:

He didn’t want to be vetted like every other spouse is required to be.

Both Biden and Clinton vociferously criticized Obama in the primaries (as should have been expected). Why would Obama pick Biden who can only deliver a few hundred thousand votes, when Clinton can deliver 18 million very enthusiastic votes?!? Obama did not vet Clinton or even consult her on the VP position. How else to interpret this other than that Obama has a personal antipathy for Hillary Clinton? But why would he not also hate Biden? The only conclusion can be that Obama is a narcissist. Despite that the logical and intelligent move would be to pick Hillary as VP, he shoots himself and the Democratic party in the foot to assuage his hurt feelings over Hillary’s pushing him to the limit in the primaries.

Barack Obama is behaving like a child and will be spanked by Clinton Democrats in the election for it…

Ben, one of the more annoying themes trotting around the soi-disant “progressive” blogosphere is that this one is no more left than that one and there’s not a dime’s worth of difference that matters in the larger scheme of things, and boy, that is just not true at all.  They vary a great deal on individual issues.  Obama somehow got identified as the poster child for the progressive movement early on, and as nearly as I can tell it was solely on the basis of having been one of the very few candidates and the only one with a chance who was right on Iraq from the beginning.  However, it was clear early on that he was lousy on healthcare, middling on the economy, not-so-great on labor issues and job creation, crappy on glbt stuff, wishy-washy on women’s issues, and so on.  To the extent that he’s got much to say about agriculture it’s ethanol boosterism.  And if you go down the line on candidates you’ll find that there’s tremendous differences there on the individual issues, even if they tend to average out about the same (although I believe that Obama actually is somewhat to the right of many of the other candidates, including Clinton).  It comes down to where you make the tradeoffs.  Just because you like the tradeoffs Obama’s made doesn’t make him more “progressive,” although it might mean that he’s more “progressive” on the issues that matter most to *you*.

How else to interpret this other than that Obama has a personal antipathy for Hillary Clinton?

Uhhhh… alot of ways. Hillary Clinton also has crazy high negatives, Hillary comes with Bill attached, He’s already going to win New York (much as he’s already going to win Delaware), Mark Penn,.... a million other things…

Not saying it was one of those, but your rhetoric is overblown. I don’t think anyone but Hillary Clinton supporters thinks it was the “the logical and intelligent move”. It was a move that had to be weighed against all the mitigating factors.

Melinda-

I don’t disagree Hillary was more progressive on certain things than Obama. Healthcare, for instance.

But overall the differences between Clinton and Obama on one hand, and the differences between Clinton and Obama TOGETHER vs. McCain is wide enough to for a battleship to sail through.

But compare this ticket with Kerry/Edwards, or with Gore/(ugh)Lieberman, or even Clinton/Gore.

Obama/Biden more solidly progressive by a mile than any of those tickets.

I also think everyone who doesn’t know Biden well is going to warm up to him once you see him out on the trail taking the hatchet to McCain.

But wasn’t it (to echo Ben D’s comment above) reported very early on in the VP selection process that the vetting this time was going to be especially rigorous and that the Clintons weren’t interested in submitting to it?

Latts-

I didn’t know enough about Sebelius to say one way or the other on her. From what you say she sounds solid, but again, OMG NO WOMAN BUT HILLARY!

If shes as solid as you say she is and she was passed over for that reason that’s just plain lousy. I think it was a combination of that and the Georgia crisis.

Do you think Biden is really that bad of a choice though? I can’t think of any really big reason to dump on him like I could with Kaine or Bayh.

What a lot of sex therapists will tell a person who is paranoid about their SO cheating is that the worst thing you can do is make accusations, snoop around, and generally not trust your SO.  Why?  Because a lot of people who don’t cheat who are put in this situation think to themselves, “I’m getting punished anyway, so I might as well cheat.”

Yes, Amanda, we should trust our candidate like a devoted wife trusts her husband. Never nag, never be shrewish or shrill, because then what’s his motivation not to step out on us, after all? We vowed to honor and obey, not question and examine, right? And we know men only live up or down to our expectations of them.

This extended metaphor is not remotely problematic in any feminist way, at all.

Congratulations, you’ve blown my mind.

Shorter me: Obama’s not my boyfriend.

it’s official.  i’m a feminist therapist, and i’m never reading pandagon again.  used to love you guys.

...guess we got some people who voted for Nader last time….

Look, guys—politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the perfect.  Getting the Ideal Candidate doesn’t work because only you and 5 other people think Person X is Perfect and everyone else has a million reasons Why Person X Sucks.  What you’re trying to find is someone who is considered to only slightly suck by 95% of your potential voters. (The last 5% are diehards and won’t vote for anyone who isn’t their Chosen Son.)

Hillary had too high negatives and had too much baggage—admit it.

Biden—eh, I would have preferred Wesley Clark, but at least Biden is reasonable, has a good sense of foreign affairs, and doesn’t frighten the Independents.

I… thought the ‘cheating’ metaphor was not supposed to refer to Obama’s sex.
Just, you know, that anyone can be swayed to live down to expectations if they don’t get credit for positives. My mom talked about that a lot, and the reverse, because she was a teacher.

Why would Obama pick Biden who can only deliver a few hundred thousand votes, when Clinton can deliver 18 million very enthusiastic votes?!?

Huh?