I love Joe Biden. He's good for at least one "Kerryesqe" sound bite every six months. They're usually race related. Last time it was something about Indians and 7-11. I never understood that one. This time it is about black people. Or to be more specific Barak Obama. To be even more specific it was about the clean, articulate, sharp Barrack Obama.

Now Joseph Biden is not a racist by any means. Racially insensitive maybe but not a racist. He is a person whose mouth works faster than his brain. This is all exacerbated by his belief that he is the smartest thing since Hermann Einstein who came up with the idea of creating an Albert Einstein. Just look at his performance during the Samuel Alito nomination. He had 20 minutes to question Judge Alito and spent 19 minutes of it telling him how he should answer the questions. Trouble was there were no questions. He seems to think that everything that comes out of his mouth is absolute gold.

What do the Indians think about that?

So instead of spending the day talking about his announcing he is running for president he spent the day trying to play down his remarks about Barak Obama. Obviously he has shot any chance of the Democratic nomination in the proverbial left foot. This has to be some sort of record. He lost any chance of getting the nomination on the day he announced he was running.

Ironically if he said this 20 years ago no one would have paid it any attention.

In 1988 the Democrats realized they could blame their election losses on Race. The Willie Horton ads the Bush team ran were unfairly accurate. Coupled with Michael Dukakis and his ego which was curiously taller than he was, the American public decided they did not need a commander in chief that insisted on releasing non parole inmates into the free world every weekend.

By the new millennia they had expanded it from using race to explain why they lost an election to using race to prevent losing one. By the time Strom Thurmond realized he was retiring years after he died they figured out how to use race to kill a Republican's political career.

It's all about race with them. The latest victim is George Allen. If you listen to them Senator Allen laid awake at nights thinking of an obscure word that demeans a foreigner. (I'm not even sure what nationality the guy was). George Allen will always be connected to the word "Macaca". Does anyone believe George Allen would stare into a camera and hurl racial slurs at an opponents staffer a few weeks before an election?

Republicans never get a pass when they say something dumb. Democrats pounce on each and every one of these gaffes with a zeal we wish they reserved for the terrorists. Meanwhile when a Democrat does a Biden the mainstream media simply ignores it or excepts a really weak excuse. (Sandy Berger was simply unorganized. He's messy and Chris Mathews is okay with that).

So what is happening now is Republicans jump on every minor infraction. outraged not necessarily because the remark was wrong or obscene but because if it was one of them they would have been strung up.

So in a sad twist of Irony Joe Biden who is always at war with his own vocal chords is the victim of his party's own need to create a racial situation out of nothing. Other than the now (in)famous quote he said some pretty intelligent things about John Edwards and Hillary Clinton's plans for surrendering in Iraq.

But what did he say anyway? He said Barak Obama was articulate. Well he is. Senator Obama never really says anything but he says it so well. Was Biden saying it's nice to see a black man run for president that something other than Ebonics? Perhaps Biden expected Barak to sound like Snoop Dog. I just don't know.

He also said Barak was clean. How often Senator Obama takes a bath I do not know. I'm also not aware of any unusual hygiene habits of Senator Biden. Biden claims he meant Obama is clean cut. Well if you are comparing Obama to other black Presidential candidates like Al Sharp ton and Jessie Jackson then Senator Biden was spot on.

Joe Biden is probably safe until the election heats up and he is forced to make several statements a day. Lord knows what he will say next. I'm waiting for the Clinton camp to fabricate a story about John McCain's family owning six slaves and a Peruvian butler.

-Bert