While Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain are avoiding interviews with the press corps that follows them and Biden's running mate Sen. Barack Obama projects such an aura of cool liberal columnists are begging him to get more animated, the Delaware senator is at times gleefully expansivePlaces like NRO's Corner are having some fun with Biden's loquaciousness.
Biden seems to enjoy having journalists following him around, if only to have more people listen to his running commentary on whatever springs to his mind. A CBS reporter following Biden around estimated Biden has done 80 interviews since he was named vice president, compared to two by Palin.
Of course it's easy to get caught up in this kind of stuff when you're doing 40 times as many press appearances as your opponent, but part of it is just Biden being Biden. I don't know how it will play out in terms of voters' perception of him, but I suspect most of it is low profile enough to not matter in the large scheme of things. Given Palin's spectacle, the debate is what will matter most, and no one knows how that's going to go.
That aside, I think Biden's forthrightness is refreshing. It's not like he'll make these kind of gaffes when dealing with foreign leaders, as he has tons of foreign policy experience. He would never have been able to win a primary and make it to the top of a ticket on his own steam, but as a veep he's quite entertaining, and -- I think -- interesting.
In many ways he's the polar opposite of Cheney, which if you ask me is just what the doctor ordered.
UPDATE, Sullivan:
Biden has outdone himself. First he repudiates Obama's ad calling McCain computer illiterate, then he misstates Obama's position on coal, and lastly he badly garbles his Depression era history. Well: at least he's talking in public. And where the hell are his medical records? C'mon!
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