Joe Biden

So in 1988, a month or so after the presidential election, I attended a speech by Joe Biden at American University. About 15 people were in attendance – not a lot of folks. During the somewhat anemic question and answer session, I posed a smart-ass query. I asked – approximately – “In Arthur C. Clarke’s Fountains of Paradise, the author speculates that no person who is willing to suffer the indignities of running for President of the United States is morally competent to actually fill the position. Clarke argues, instead, that the presidency should be selected by lottery from among qualified individuals. What do you think about Clarke’s idea?”

And Joe Biden sneered at me and said, “I think that’s a terrible idea.” He went on for a minute or two, but the gist of it was in the first sentence.

Of course, Joe Biden had just run an embarrassingly incompetent campaign for the Democrat nomination, in which he plagiarized Neil Kinnock and also made rude remarks about his critics’ IQs.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Obama is going to lose in November, assuming Hillary doesn’t get the nod at the convention.

(Never mind.)