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The vice presidential nomination is usually completely up to the presidential nominee to decide and it is his first major decision he has to make. That Obama picked an embarrassing idiot like Biden tells us a lot about Obama's judgment and seriousness of purpose--just as George W. Bush's choice of Dick Cheney told us a lot about GWB.

The only times in recent history when it wasn't a question of the presidential nominee making the decision were in 1956, when Adlai Stevenson allowed the convention to decide, and 1960, when Lyndon Johnson blackmailed Kennedy into picking him (Kennedy had intended to pick Stuart Symington). At least that is how Seymour Hersh tells the story.