Biden His Time

OpinionJournal ^ | January 12, 2006 | Peggy Noonan

[oldtimer2]

Biden His Time

Judge Alito's low-affect tour de force.

Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Isn't that like saying, "I know it's all spin, but he spun me like a top!"?

Let's cause some senators distress. The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him.

He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.

[oldtimer2]

This is a perfect portrait of Biden. like a garrulous uncle after a drink, or three or more

[martin_fierro]

The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going.

Yes, that really is one sentence.

Some days I think they pay Peggy by the word.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Actually Joe is like the Rio Grande.

Six inches deep and a mile wide at the mouth.

[conservativecorner]

"But this one is all kind of over, isn't it? It definitively ended when Mrs. Alito walked out in tears. But to me it seemed over on day one. The Democrats on the committee seemed forlorn in a way, as if they knew deep in their hearts that nobody's listening. Two decades ago they could make their speeches and fake their indignation and accuse a Robert Bork of being a racist chauvinist woman hater and their accusations would ring throughout the country. But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot."

Bingo BUMP!!

[Notwithstanding]

Are any of them (the MSM and the totalitatiran liberals) admitting that the rules have changed and they have no game plan for playing by these new rules?

[Loud Mime]

Either liberals like Ted Kennedy really believe that conservatives harbor deep in their hearts an animus toward women, and blacks, and Hispanics, and everyone who is not a white male, or liberals simply enjoy, for reasons that are cynical and perhaps also psychological ("The people I fight are bad; this buttresses my belief that I, in spite of what I know about myself, am good"), suggesting that conservatives are full of narrow-minded bigotry and hatred.

Another long $entence...

[Constitution Day]

Incredible!

The length of that sentence could rival some of Faulkner's doozies.

[neodad]

In this, in the hearings, he is unlike Ted Kennedy in that he doesn't seem driven by some obscure malice--Uh, I, uh, cannot, uh, remembuh why I hate you, Judge Alioto, but there, uh, must be a good reason and I will, um, damn well find it. When he peers over his glasses at Judge Alito he is like an old woman who's unfortunately senile and quite sure the teapot on the stove is plotting against her

LOL!

[COUNTrecount]

think senators feel that their words, when strung together, become little bridges. I think the White House feels that their words, when strung together, become little nooses.

Briges to nowhere.

[MinuteGal]

Peggy was imitating Biden in her long winded, multi-claused sentence.

It's called "irony", and she slipped it into her article very well.

Leni

[Neville72]

Here's my favorite. "They know the senators are, by nature, like Conair 2000 hairdryers: They just love to blow, and hard."

Priceless!!!!!

[CharlesWayneCT]

This is one case where Richard Cohen actually wrote more coherently about Biden's problems with speech than Peggy Noonan.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Irony?

I'm just finishing my online class in sarcasm....

[N. Theknow]

If I were Alito, I would be soooooo tempted whenever Biden finishes talking to say, "I'm sorry Senator, would you repeat the question."

[CharlesWayneCT]

I heard a caller to C-span who was trashing both parties, but he said the republicans are building a bridge to somewhere and Ted Kennedy is going to drive us over it.

I don't know if he purposely did this, but I laughed....

[CharlesWayneCT]

Richard Cohen did this with a string of metaphors. I heard it on C-span, and it was pretty funny.

Said the only thing standing between Biden and the presidency was his mouth, and said something about that being a great divide.

[Constitution Day]

heh.

[verity]

Found this one by Mark Twain.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Here's two snippets from Cohen's article in the Washington Post:

The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden.

...

He has been in the Senate since 1973 and suffers, as nearly all senators do sooner or later, from the conviction that he and his colleagues are the center of the world. After all, no one -- with the possible exception of family members -- ever tells a senator to shut up. They are surrounded by fawning staff and generally treated as minor deities. They lose perspective, which is why, now that you've asked, they talk and talk at these hearings. They are convinced the world is watching. Actually, it's only a half a dozen shut-ins on C-SPAN -- and, of course, the nearly catatonic press corps. Everyone else is playing computer solitaire.

[Puddleglum]

Actually Joe is like the Rio Grande.

Six inches deep and a mile wide at the mouth.

LOL! Thanks for my first laugh of the day!