McCain Calls Biden a Wise Move

I’ll give McCain a little credit for taking the high road. His handlers must be tearing their hair out.

(CBS) In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric Saturday at his home in Sedona, Ariz., presumptive GOP nominee John McCain had kind words for Sen. Joe Biden, who last night was named presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s running mate.

“I think he’s a good selection,” McCain told Couric of Biden. “Joe and I have been friends for many, many years, and we know each other very well, and so I think he’s made a very wise selection.”

Saying something gracious and true when it is not to your political advantage is far too rare these days. I’ll give McCain props for resisting the urge to slam his old friend. This is particularly true because there is no way that Joe Biden is going to return the favor.

And whatever they might say later, criticizing Obama for making a wise pick for vice-president just isn’t very convincing. They’ll say that the ticket should be flipped, with Biden on top. But that’s a far cry from a real hard-hitting critique. Is Obama wise or not wise? McCain has already weighed in.

5 Comments

Cee on August 24, 2008 at 11:56 am

McCain couldn’t say anything else after using Biden in the ad praising him.

This is going to be good.

BooMan on August 24, 2008 at 12:11 pm

BTW, Maureen Dowd evened the score today. I’ll be keeping an eye on her.
- idredit on August 24, 2008 at 12:21 pm
  
  soon Americans will note..the P.O.W years already a broken record,.. tell me what you gonna do for my economic pain and all that jingle mail?
  
  As Biden noted, a good soldier yes, but is he a good leader?
  
  How has the P.O.W experience warped McCain’s mental faculties?

Drew J Jones on August 24, 2008 at 12:56 pm

What else is he going to say? He’s been friends with Biden for years. And he’s already taken a shot at the ticket with an ad.

I don’t think Biden’s going to return the favor anymore. He observed the niceties briefly yesterday when he called McCain a long-time friend, and then slammed McCain in an I’m-just-getting-warmed-up kind of way.

So, yes, props to McCain. Now back to hitting him.

idredit on August 24, 2008 at 4:02 pm

that McCain compliment sure steps on his Ad campaign –

Obama is either inexperienced, not ready to be C-I-C, yet for an inexperienced guy he sure shows good judgment – twice on Iraq and now with his VP pick.

Andrew Sullivan, at his blog and in The Times, UK:
has a very interesting essay, High noon in duel for White House written for the Brits. I think you’ll all either enjoy or you’ll need a Maalox and baking soda –

The Phoney War Is Over

OR

High noon in duel for White House

“Two men now offer themselves to America, as the race starts over. My take on two very American Americans in the Sunday Times:”

WHEN you take a good, long, as-fresh-as-you-can look at the two men on stage, it is not that huge a mystery why the race has been within a few percentage points since Obama finally wrested the nomination from the Clinton dynasty. McCain and Obama are two evenly matched, larger-than-life figures with riveting biographies, charisma and a capacity to appeal beyond the members of their own parties. Of course the public is evenly divided about them.

In this face-off – between perhaps the most talented duo to joust for the title since Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 – America sees parts of itself, past and future, and finds it understandably difficult to make a choice just yet.

[.]

Obama’s Americanness, however, is deep, for all the aspersions of otherness thrown at him. His DNA combines two of the more indelible American identities: heartland grit and immigrant dreams. Half his family has roots in Kansas, the heart of the heartland. His largely absent father came from a distant place, Kenya, and Obama grew up in, among other places, Indonesia. These two identities place him at the centre of a churning, yet traditionally immigrant country.

His eclectic Americanness reveals itself elsewhere as well.

He is at home in the rabble-rousing church of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright and yet he is also in his element at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He plays basketball and can write like a professional novelist. He is a product of modern Chicago and premodern Indonesia – and able to note similarities in each.

[.]

The raw appeal of McCain as a candidate, on the other hand, is rooted in another form of Americanness.

[.]

McCain is a far more mercurial, emotional and volatile character than Obama. Despite being a generation older – he will be 72 on Friday – he is temperamentally much younger than his rival. There is a lot of Churchill in McCain: the melodrama and the sanctimony, the mawkishness and the sincerity, the big heart and sometimes faulty judgment.

[.]

OMG. Andrew elevates McCain to Churchill!?! Which of the McCains?

I guess Andrew missed the several – not too flattering McCain profiles – his POW and post POW years by the Cockburns and others in Counterpunch.

To pinch a Biden..this McCain campaign rests on a noun, a verb and the acronym POW.

Cee on August 24, 2008 at 11:56 am

McCain couldn’t say anything else after using Biden in the ad praising him.

This is going to be good.
- BooMan on August 24, 2008 at 12:11 pm
  
  BTW, Maureen Dowd evened the score today. I’ll be keeping an eye on her.
  - idredit on August 24, 2008 at 12:21 pm
    
    soon Americans will note..the P.O.W years already a broken record,.. tell me what you gonna do for my economic pain and all that jingle mail?
    
    As Biden noted, a good soldier yes, but is he a good leader?
    
    How has the P.O.W experience warped McCain’s mental faculties?
Drew J Jones on August 24, 2008 at 12:56 pm

What else is he going to say? He’s been friends with Biden for years. And he’s already taken a shot at the ticket with an ad.

I don’t think Biden’s going to return the favor anymore. He observed the niceties briefly yesterday when he called McCain a long-time friend, and then slammed McCain in an I’m-just-getting-warmed-up kind of way.

So, yes, props to McCain. Now back to hitting him.
- idredit on August 24, 2008 at 4:02 pm
  
  that McCain compliment sure steps on his Ad campaign –
  
  Obama is either inexperienced, not ready to be C-I-C, yet for an inexperienced guy he sure shows good judgment – twice on Iraq and now with his VP pick.
  
  Andrew Sullivan, at his blog and in The Times, UK:
  has a very interesting essay, High noon in duel for White House written for the Brits. I think you’ll all either enjoy or you’ll need a Maalox and baking soda –
  
  The Phoney War Is Over
  
  OR
  
  High noon in duel for White House
  
  “Two men now offer themselves to America, as the race starts over. My take on two very American Americans in the Sunday Times:”
  
  WHEN you take a good, long, as-fresh-as-you-can look at the two men on stage, it is not that huge a mystery why the race has been within a few percentage points since Obama finally wrested the nomination from the Clinton dynasty. McCain and Obama are two evenly matched, larger-than-life figures with riveting biographies, charisma and a capacity to appeal beyond the members of their own parties. Of course the public is evenly divided about them.
  
  In this face-off – between perhaps the most talented duo to joust for the title since Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 – America sees parts of itself, past and future, and finds it understandably difficult to make a choice just yet.
  
  [.]
  
  Obama’s Americanness, however, is deep, for all the aspersions of otherness thrown at him. His DNA combines two of the more indelible American identities: heartland grit and immigrant dreams. Half his family has roots in Kansas, the heart of the heartland. His largely absent father came from a distant place, Kenya, and Obama grew up in, among other places, Indonesia. These two identities place him at the centre of a churning, yet traditionally immigrant country.
  
  His eclectic Americanness reveals itself elsewhere as well.
  
  He is at home in the rabble-rousing church of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright and yet he is also in his element at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He plays basketball and can write like a professional novelist. He is a product of modern Chicago and premodern Indonesia – and able to note similarities in each.
  
  [.]
  
  The raw appeal of McCain as a candidate, on the other hand, is rooted in another form of Americanness.
  
  [.]
  
  McCain is a far more mercurial, emotional and volatile character than Obama. Despite being a generation older – he will be 72 on Friday – he is temperamentally much younger than his rival. There is a lot of Churchill in McCain: the melodrama and the sanctimony, the mawkishness and the sincerity, the big heart and sometimes faulty judgment.
  
  [.]
  
  OMG. Andrew elevates McCain to Churchill!?! Which of the McCains?
  
  I guess Andrew missed the several – not too flattering McCain profiles – his POW and post POW years by the Cockburns and others in Counterpunch.
  
  To pinch a Biden..this McCain campaign rests on a noun, a verb and the acronym POW.

McCain Calls Biden a Wise Move

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