Joe Biden's Hubris

"The press is exaggerating how white women are all of a sudden for Sarah Palin," Biden said. "We still have more women voting for Barack Obama than for John McCain...Part of the problem is in white suburbia, as well as...among ethnic groups, among, particularly Jews and Catholics, there is a lack of ease about Barack. They don't know him. One of my major jobs is to go out and talk about what I know -- they know me -- talk about who I am, why I support Barack."

-- Joe Biden, to Chicago fundraisers, 9 September 2008.

I love ya, Joe. The second I heard you were the v.p. nominee, I turned to my roommate and told him as much. You say silly stuff from time to time, and your hair plugs and touched-up smile are corny, but you have a quality all your own. I haven't met you, but you strike me as one of the most genuine men in politics. You are, however, genuinely deluded if you think that the people who don't know Sen. Obama will know who you are.

Think of a Venn Diagram with two big circles: one labeled "Those Who Don't Know Barack Obama", the other "Those Who Know Joe Biden". Those circles aren't just nontangential, they are on separate chalkboards in separate classrooms at separate universities. Hell, you could probably draw another circle just inside the "Don't Know Barack" one labelled "Those Who Don't Know Anything About The State Of Delaware, Including It's Location On a Labelled Map."