A dead brain and misspent adulthood

Delaware's veteran Senator Joseph Biden may be languishing far in the back of the 10-candidate Democratic field, in terms of poll numbers, fundraising and media attention. He doesn't talk much about his unsuccessful run for the White House in 1988 and he is modest about his long congressional career. "Essentially," he admits, "being a senator for 34 years is the definition of a misspent adulthood."

Biden knows, however, how to keep plugging through the endless, repetitive events and the inane chatter that passes for passing conversations with voters.

Despite his long experience in public life Biden nonetheless still sometimes shoots from the lip. Last week, according to the N.Y. Times, he was speaking to a backyard gathering in Des Moines when the subject of President Bush came up. Biden reportedly said, "This guy is brain dead." You know, kind of like Terri Schiavo on life support, drooling, empty eyes, feeding tubes, a catheter.

After a few moments of stunned surprise, Biden got some laughs, applause, press coverage and web chatter, something his campaign has been sadly lacking. Some people found the comment not the most elevated of political dialogue. But it went over big in partisan Democratic circles, which is the primary audience.

It's amazing, however, how much Biden's opinion of the president's intelligence has changed in the last month or so since the senator had a long airplane conversation over the rolling fields of Iowa with The Times' Robin Abcarian. That interview helped produce this On the Trail story in The Times.

But during that conversation, Biden also said the following: "I think the one thing people are looking for is someone who is both authentic and smart, who knows what they would do, has the experience to lead people to believe that their depth and breadth is sufficient to deal with these big issues.

"I say that," the senator added, "not as it relates to Bush in terms of even his intelligence--I think people underestimate the guy's intelligence--but I say that in terms of his experience."

The only conceivable explanation for this clear contradiction is that the president suddenly became brain dead in recent weeks and Biden, as close as he is to the Republican chief executive, noticed it right away.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Joseph Biden; Credit: Mark Hirsch/Getty Images

Comments

[rob]

We are all barking up the wrong tree if we assume the Presidents' intelligence or personality or character are over-archingly relevant. The President is merely a symbol of a whole subset of people, angry aging aflluent boomers (AAABs?) who cannot face the fact that the world doesn't rotate around them, and never did. If Shrub weren't in power, someone else would be.

Regardless of who wins in 2008, we're still going to have to deal with a whole class of people in this country who have a fundamental allergy to egalitarianism, meritocracy, and altruism.