OK, Obama, you've won the election. You're not electioneering anymore. You can freely admit that Joe Biden is the Antichange. It's like pulling off a Band-Aid to lighten up on the rhetoric and just reveal the real you, good or bad, instead of the campaign trail cult of personality. But if you do it quickly, it's a lot easier on everyone.

That "Office of the President Elect" sign is cheese enough, but now Obama has nabbed the site "change.gov" as his transition portal. There you can learn about "The Administration" that's not yet the administration, and submit "your inspiring stories from the campaign and Election Day." Which loosely translates to, "We want to hear how you walked three miles in bare feet chanting Obama's name while drawing onetime McCain voters behind you like the Pied Piper, so that when the honeymoon period is over we can have something to read to plump our egos."

In other important American news, Obama will not be getting a puppy before moving into the White House. Because it makes perfect sense to potty train a pup in America's most valuable historic landmark.

Discussion

• November 17, 2008

  1:17 PM

  Traffic Cop Timmy writes:

  And in other news, a beautiful 16-year old girl was killed by a drunk driver here in Phoenix, AZ. The drunk was an illegal immigrant. I'd trade in any of the feel good stories for real change - like enforceable borders.

  Just another victim of a victimless crime: illegal immigration.

• November 18, 2008

  12:33 PM

  joggle writes:

  Traffic Cop Timmy: Your post is completely off topic. In another case a woman drove her SUV right into a truck driven by a Hispanic driver in Denver a week or two ago. The injured truck driver ran over and was able to pull the woman's infant and child from the back of her burning SUV but was unable to save the mother.

  I'd trade your racism for M&Ms any day.

  As to this story, in regards to the puppy it makes sense for them to wait until they've settled in since it is stressful for dogs to be adopted and it would be additionally stressful for them when their owners are moving.

  If they get a shelter dog he/she will probably already be potty trained.

  Biden is a great pragmatist, probably the first Democrat to propose a way to stabilize Iraq (proven to work in other countries over the past 100 years) without keeping our troops there for years on end. I don't agree with him on everything but he is certainly good at explaining his views and has a more in-depth knowledge of foreign affairs than virtually any other politician, Democrat or Republican.

• November 18, 2008

  12:37 PM

  joggle writes:

  One more note: If Biden is the anti-anything he's the anti-Palin. He's almost the total opposite of her, where she has no experience he has more than almost anyone, where she cannot give a cogent argument to save her life he could drone on and on in excruciating detail, where she could not espouse modesty (even false modesty) he has no trouble at least 'acting' modestly, where she has virtually no discussions with people that disagree with her he has long-standing Republican friends, and so on.

• November 18, 2008

  1:34 PM

  prima facie writes:

  Joe Biden is also good for intelligent discourse, not to mention asking wheelchair-bound men to stand up. To wit:

  "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened'." -- Joe Biden, Sept. 22, 2008

  "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." -- Joe Biden, 2006

  "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." -- Joe Biden, 2007

  "I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? [Then pointing to his wife in the audience] Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I'm the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?" -- Joe Biden, Aug. 23, 2007, plagiarizing Neil Kinnock

  
  “Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S.” -- Joe Biden, Oct. 15, 2008

  Give him a hand, folks, he'll be here all week....

• November 18, 2008

  5:11 PM

  joggle writes:

  I said he CAN give a cogent argument, not that he always says smart things (as far as I know nobody does the latter, although Obama comes awfully close).

  Here's another quote for you PF: (from his interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press last year http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20676549/page/3/)

  MR. RUSSERT: This hearing tomorrow with General Petraeus is very highly charged politically. Moveon.org, a liberal Democratic group, is taking an ad in The New York Times, and this is what it’s going to be: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the Books for the White House.” What’s your reaction to that?

  SEN. BIDEN: I don’t buy into that. This is an honorable guy. He’s telling the truth. I have his letter here like you just quoted from. He acknowledges—look, by its own measure, the surge has failed. What was the reason for the surge? To provide breathing room. For what purpose? To allow the sectarian warring factions to work out a political compromise. He acknowledges that’s not there. He’s telling the truth. There’ve been some tactical gains, but they have no ultimate bearing, at this point, on the prospect of there being a political settlement in Iraq that would allow American troops to come home without leaving chaos behind. So I, I just—I think that’s pretty hard-edged. He’s an honorable guy. I disagree with what his recommendation is likely to be, but I don’t think he is cooking the books. He’s stating the part that he believes is true. There’s been some limited tactical success, but quite frankly, it’s irrelevant to this central problem. The central problem is a sectarian war. If every jihadist in Iraq was killed tomorrow, we’d still have a major civil war killing thousands—wounding thousands of Americans and killing hundreds of Americans just since the surge began.

  ---

  Can you even begin to imagine Palin ever giving an answer anywhere near as thorough and logical as his to an issue involving Iraq?

• November 20, 2008

  12:46 PM

  John_II writes:

  Joggle,

  Your quote of Biden supposedly being "thorough" and "logical" was a bit puzzling. Were you trying to defend him or attack him?

  That interview was from Sept. 2007 - over a year ago. History has proven Biden wrong. In fact, Biden's "logical" solution to solving sectarian violence was to segregate the sects into smaller countries. What a disaster that would have been.

• December 20, 2008

  12:02 AM

  Traffic Cop Timmy writes:

  Since when is reporting facts racist? I dare you to find any word in my post that refers to any race - ANY race!

  "And in other news, a beautiful 16-year old girl was killed by a drunk driver here in Phoenix, AZ. The drunk was an illegal immigrant. I'd trade in any of the feel good stories for real change - like enforceable borders.

  Just another victim of a victimless crime: illegal immigration"