Biden Starts, and May Have Ended, His Presidential Run

Sen. Joe Biden has joined the long line of Dems who think they have what it takes to be president. Biden was not too complimentary of his fellow candidates:

— Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has officially launched his campaign and came out of the gate swinging at fellow Democrats. Biden told The New York Observer that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's position on Iraq "baffles" him, and said the results would be "nothing but disaster." He went on to question her electability and whether voters would turn to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama due to his lack of experience. He also called former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards — along with 2004 running mate Sen. John Kerry — a "blow-dried candidate," saying that on Iraq "I don't think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about." Biden also conducted a less contentious interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, saying he learned his lessons from his 1988 run at the White House — namely "words matter" and "to lose one's temper is not a good thing."

The New York Observer reports comments by Biden that could potentially be a campaign-ending gaffe:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Since when do you describe a candidate of any color "clean"? And Obama is the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright"? Biden will successfully talk his way out of this campaign before too long.

UPDATE: Drudge has the Biden "clean" comment as the headline on his site. Bye-bye Biden.

UPDATE 2: It's all over the net now, so Biden will have some 'splaining to do. Mark Daniels makes the point, and probably correctly so, that Biden's not racist, but simply fumbled his words. My guess is he was thinking "clean-cut" but it came out "clean". Either way it's a rocky start for Biden. He should have just plagiarized something from somebody else like he did in 1988.

Biden does have a bit of a history of racially-tinged comments, such as his statement about the Indian shopkeepers and his comments that he thought being from a slave state might be helpful to his campaign in the South. He certainly didn't do himself any favors today.