you know, I've always liked Joe as a professional legislator...but, jesus, he is windy. I wish he was capable of simply saying what he had to say, clearly and succinctly. But he can't, apparently. Half the time you have to decipher what the hell he means..and I'm sure that's not his intention.

Anyone who says Biden is straightforward and candid is smoking crack. 30 years in the Senate have turned him into a hopeless windbag.. and, thus, unelectable.

I'd rather have a candidate that was "windy" than one who used their brevity to mask a lack of knowledge of the issues.

Thank you Joe "Delaware Corporation" Biden for helping pass the Bankruptcy Bill which was designed to "give minorities better access to credit." Yeah, right.

You lost the day you voted for cloture on that one, Joe. Suck it up.

Joe Biden goes on the Daily Show or the Late Show and makes a pretty good play of being out of the political mainstream---speaking with candor and outrageous bemusement at the political system he knows so well and yet distances himself from. He tries to pass himself off as being above the frey---no fundraising in 30 years, soemone not afraid to say what's on his mind--and yet when push comes to shove and he goes too far and alienates people, he shows himself to be the consummate politician, backpedaling, apologizing, smirking his inimitable "Can't you take a joke?" sly little grin.

I hate to say it, but he has quite alot of the frat boy in him. Humble roots (maybe?), but he doesn't seem enjoy being thought of as someone who takes things seriously. I like him, he'd be fun at a family barbecue, but he isn't worthy of the presidency. Enough of electing presidents who are fun to drink with.

I want a president, after eight years of an idiot puppet controlled by beelzebub himself, who is smart, honest, savvy, strategic, strong, compassionate, ethical and experienced. Smart? I'd say Hillary and Barack and John Edwards fill that bill; Honest? Hard to say at this point. Savvy? Hillary has that market cornered---to such an extreme she is a total turnoff. She takes savvy to the level of ruthless. Strategic? All of them, I think. John Edwards gives the impression of being more than a little afraid of just how dirty the mud-slinging can get. (His WIFE though, is totally up to those challenges and he knows it!).

The one person who can redeem us? (And I mean that in every sense of the word.) Al Gore. We all know it. It's 100+ degrees here AGAIN. And will be all summer long. And in october, when it cools off to a balmy 90, he'll win the Nobel Prize, and then the race will narrow considerably. I hate to be a broken record, but it just seems to OBVIOUS. Global Warming, Foreign Policy, Political expertise, problem solving ability, humanity and the ability to empathize with people other than those at the helm of the oil industry or the military industrial complex...... there is not a better candidate.

Why waste time with Joe "I figured someone back there had to be a coal miner! Turns out they were all engineers who went to Lehigh!" Biden? Al Gore as president. Just imagine what that would be like. Even you hard-core 26% out there who still want those beers with Dubya---can't we agree you could guzzle with Dubya, but let Al run the country?

Guess he is though.

With all due respect, Mr. Shapiro and you too Mr. Serious Senator Sir ... come back someday and visit us here on Earth. Your pals at MBNA no doubt miss you, Joe, you Democrat you! When you get back, try to actually READ some liberal blogs. Get your head out of your Beltway.

Samlor points out Biden voted for cloture on the bankruptcy bill, given his mandate as a Senator from Delaware and for the credit card industry. While I like Biden, I agree this is a serious reason not to get carried away. The current candidate for first spouse, William Jefferson Clinton, vetoed that legislative wish list presented to Congress by predatory credit card companies. I'm guessing, but I'll bet the candidate for first executive, Hillary Rodham Clinton, followed family policy on that and did not go along with rubber stamping legislation drafted by credit card companies. So, here, the halo lies on the head, respectively, of Clinton 1 and Clinton 2. Or is that Clinton 42 and Clinton 44?

Senator Biden asks, "What are they talking about?" with regard to bloggers who say "We're going to take back the Democratic Party." It confuses him. Bloggers don't appear, to Biden, to "have perspective." They are members of the "New Left" who want to put "the party nominee in the position he can't win a general election."

I'll help the Senator with his confusion, since it's not all that atypical of folks of his generation. Senator Biden, what we really want is to "take back the Democratic Party" from lifetime inside-the-Beltway politicians who have been loyal party apparatchiks for 35 years, who have had such easy Senate re-elections that they haven't "done anything political in 20 years." Northeastern lawyers who think a long legislative resume equates to qualification for the White House.

We'd like to reclaim the party from those type of folks. Know anyone like that, Senator?

And it wearies me that Biden buys into the Republican canard that "the blogosphere" is a bunch of wild-eyed, anti-war, "get us out now," fringe fanatics. Given that 60% of Americans want us out of Iraq; given that bloggers tend to skew more libertarian, better educated, and (by definition) fairly articulate, it's pretty insulting to see Biden lumping us in with the long-haired Vietnam anti-war protester crowd of his youth.

But then, like I said, he's been inside that Beltway for quite a while; I've heard it does things to your perspective.

It's painfully obvious that bloggers own less than a controlling interest in the Democratic Party. The real question is, Does the Democratic Party own the bloggers? Wait a year until the progressive solidarity police are once again dictating that you mustn't even think of voting for a third party in November.