Isn't It Rich?

Rah-rah, Amtrak! Yeah, passenger rail! Obama pushes this pet project, and Joe Biden gets a little action- the station in Wilmington, DE is to be named for him.

So, all the brass go out to the station, including Amtrak's CEO. Of course, he traveled by train. Would the CEO of Amtrak travel to one of his own stations any other way? From the Daily Caller:

One problem: the CEO of Amtrak got stuck on the train.

ABC News Deputy Political Director & Political Reporter Michael Falcone tweeted at approximately 10 a.m. that the Acela train he was riding had been “delayed” in Baltimore and that he was sitting next to Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman.

Falcone tweeted, “Acela to NY delayed for ‘unknown period’ Should I feel better that the Amtrak CEO is sitting next to me?”

It quickly became apparent that the CEO’s presence wouldn’t fix the train. A subsequent tweet from Falcone noted, “BAD sign: Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman just got OFF the train to take a car to Wilmington.”

“Amtrak CEO abandoned his own train to make ribbon cutting ceremony for Joe Biden station in Wilmington,” Falcone reported. “When I told Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman it was a bad sign he was ditching the stranded Acela, he chuckled.”

An Amtrak spokesman offered “no comment” to ABC News on the incident.

Interestingly, ABC's own online coverage of the event did not bother to note the manner of Boardman's travel. How is it that an ABC reporter could be an actual eyewitness to an interesting story line, and then the coverage not include it?

The conclusion is left as an exercise to the student.

Quick Thoughts on the Palin Pick

(Broadview Heights, OH)- The first thing I thought was, "Oh, come on. Michael Palin is British". But, I could get behind a Python for elected office. At the very least, he would be funny, and the satire of what a governing Python finds would be every bit as enlightening as it would be made hilarious.

This pick isn't funny. It's cynical. I know- all is fair in love, war, and politics, and this is a strategic pick just as sure as picking Biden was strategic in shoring up Obama's foreign policy shortcomings. But picking a candidate just because she's female and attractive? That's an abandoning of policy and worse- for some, it makes the election to come to this: Shall I vote based on the color of one candidate's skin, or, upon the gender of another?

Is that progress? No more than a sharp stick in the eye promotes long-range vision.

I observed quick hits on Palin's lack of experience. Well, nothing really prepares one for being President. CEO of a multinational corporation comes closest, for my money. But McCain, Obama, and Biden all have 100% less experience as an executive- because they have none. Palin does at least have executive branch experience, even if it can be counted the way an infant's life span is counted- in months.

I'll have a Libertarian round-up on Palin, just as I had for Biden.

Libertarians Weigh In On Biden

The reaction is pretty consistent- If Barack Obama wanted to court the civil liberties-minded left libertarians that Daily Kos was speaking of as available, he blew it with the pick of Biden. Here's a couple of reactions that got my attention.

From former DNC press secretary Terry Michael, his take on Biden:

In his first test of leadership, however, Sen. Obama tapped the man whose failure of judgment as the Democratic Party's front man on foreign affairs led congressional Democrats into collusion with, rather than principled opposition to, the neoconservatives and their criminal enterprise in Iraq. That decision reveals a politician without a compass.

Know thyself is a pretty good rule of thumb for judging leadership potential. By choosing Biden, Obama tells us he doesn't have much of a clue about himself.

From Radley Balko:

But from a policy perspective, it’s a disaster. Biden has sponsored more damaging drug war legislation than any Democrat in Congress. Hate the way federal prosecutors use RICO laws to take aim at drug offenders? Thank Biden. How about the abomination that is federal asset forfeiture laws? Thank Biden. Think federal prosecutors have too much power in drug cases? Thank Biden. Think the title of a “Drug Czar” is sanctimonious and silly? Thank Biden, who helped create the position (and still considers it an accomplishment worth boasting about). Tired of the ridiculous steroids hearings in Congress? Thank Biden, who led the effort to make steroids a Schedule 3 drug, and has been among the blowhardiest of the blowhards when it comes to sports and performance enhancing drugs. Biden voted in favor of using international development aid for drug control (think plan Columbia, plan Afghanistan, and other meddling anti-drug efforts that have only fostered loathing of America, backlash, and unintended consequences). Oh, and he was also the chief sponsor of 2004’s horrendous RAVE Act.

From Tyrrany Watch:

Barack Obama may be doing the one thing that might have seemed impossible: he’s picking a running mate whose ideas about Iraq are even worse than, and stupider than, John McCain’s.

Obama, whose mushy Iraq plan excites no one, is marrying his own’s flawed ideas — which mostly revolve around beefing up US forces in Afghanistan and unilaterally attacking Pakistan — with Biden’s discredited notion of partitioning Iraq into three squabbling mini-states.

My own reactions to Biden are that I remember him standing with McCain on Iraq issues; I remember him voting for the Patriot Act, twice; and it strikes me that we're going out of the frying pan and into the fire. George Bush picked Dick Cheney to shore up perceived weakness in foreign policy. Look how that worked out. So, we're going to have a foreign policy neo-con Dem who no doubt sees an opportunity to be as responsible for foreign policy design as the previous VP was? Not good.