Will Biden's Racial Slurs be Part of Obama's VP Pick Coverage?

As my colleague Mark Finkelstein reported Saturday, the racial slurs/gaffes of Sen. Joe Biden have already been discussed as "one of his strengths."

Despite this surprising segment on Saturday's special edition of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," one has to wonder just how much coverage the various racially insensitive remarks by the Delaware Senator are going to get in the coming days as press members analyze the wisdom of presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama choosing Biden as his running mate.

As a recap, let's begin with Biden's infamous 2006 comment about 7-Eleven workers in Delaware (video embedded below the fold):

Nice. Now, let's flash forward to January 2007 when Biden was quoted by the New York Observer as saying about Obama:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... I mean, that's a storybook, man.

Those that click on the above hyperlink embedded inside "quoted," and then click on "The New York Observer reports" will find the Observer link no longer works. My colleague Brent Baker reported on this Observer interview on January 31, 2007, and embedded the same link for the article in question. Of course, his doesn't work, either. I wonder why.

Moving forward, in October 2007, Biden said the following:

There's less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with.

And now Biden is the running mate for the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee who just so happens to be African American.

Will this be a large topic of discussion in the coming days as media report Obama's pick?