Howard Fineman, the former Newsweek reporter turned editorial director for The Huffington Post, is excited for the upcoming Vice Presidential debate this Thursday. You could tell from his column published today, which glorifies Joe as the archetypal debater. It's titled "Obama Needs the Merciless Joe."
To start things off, Fineman threw in a thinly veiled racial remark concerning Biden’s thirst for a political fight saying “what Biden lacks in academic chops he more than makes up for in street smarts; genetic political talent (his Secret Service code name is "Celtic," enough said); an eye for and an ability to earn the loyalty of brilliant, dedicated staffers; an instinct for the jugular; and a thirst for political combat.”
What “genetic political talent” is Fineman talking about? So, because Joe Biden is Irish, he uses that Celtic charm to consolidate loyalty amongst his staff and can see the weaknesses in his opponent to deliver a lethal blow. We’re skirting on racism here, Mr. Fineman.
Now, Fineman does say that Biden has a monumental task of taking on Ryan.
He has to "rebut Romney's unanswered attacks, such as the notion that federal job-training programs are wastefully duplicative; call Romney out for his brazen effort to sound like a bipartisan moderate, after a year of industrial-strength sucking up to the Tea Party; tout accomplishments of the Obama-Biden administration in ways the president mysteriously failed to do; and better explain to voters why the next four years would be better in Democratic hands than they would be under the GOP."
“In theory,” Biden is up to task.
Fineman cited that “Biden is in excellent shape physically -- a combination of a healthy sense of vanity, a beloved second wife, and steely determination, which helped him overcome brain aneurysms and the deaths of family members.” Well, Gov. Chris Christie isn’t the most svelte of individuals and not only can Christie debate – he governs with a baseball bat within an arm's reach. It’s at the ready to smack down any opponents who may stand in his way.
Lastly, Fineman mentioned the “Biden Report,” in which his Senate Judiciary Committee staff "portrayed the jurist in encyclopedic detail as an ideological extremist whose views rested dangerously outside the mainstream. It worked."
What’s odd is that Romney and Obama had both of their campaigns downplaying the expectations of their performance, but what Fineman is describing is a "Priest" Vallon-type character that is hidden within Joe Biden. Maybe liberals should just cut out all of the extraneous commentary and just come out and say that they want Joe Biden in 2016.
(H/T Kelly)
