Obama-Biden: Er, feel it

In the wee hours this morning, I thought I felt a great disturbance in the Force…but I just rolled over and went back to sleep. I awoke to muted reports of the new Democratic veep nominee: Joe Biden. Disappointed, change agents? Well, if you had a revolution every day, it wouldn’t be special, would it? More after a word from our sponsor.

Briefly:

Detectable levels of disappointment in the blogosphere from those who didn’t get the news first on their secret Obama decoder rings, as promised by the campaign.

Trace amounts of irritation with the choice of Biden based on his support of the MBNA-lobbied bankruptcy bill, a sore point among progressives.

General acknowledgment of the virtues of Biden’s foreign policy strengths and general tough-guyness.

Personal take: the message sent by relative-DC-outsider Obama’s selection of the insidery (and, uh, more qualified to be president) Biden could be interpreted as “change, but verify?”

More message interpretation:* Making the announcement in this manner - in the middle of the fucking night, basically - could well be a way of saying that the role of veep is just that unimportant, at least so far as the campaign is concerned. The campaign is about the brand, and that brand is Obama.

*Nix that: Obama, Inc.’s hand was forced by leaks to CNN. The campaign was thus obliged to make the announcement when it did.

Finally: Does the choice of Biden signal a rejection of the traditional weak role of the vice-president (assuming a Democratic victory)? I have a lot of trouble seeing a personality like Biden voluntarily accepting a “foreign dignitary funeral visitor” position. I have to assume that Obama and Biden have had conversations about a strong role - not Cheney-strong, perhaps, but certainly a center of power - within the administration.

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