Saturday, November 10, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Jefferson Jackson Dinner: Biden
He started out as if he were doing stand-up, bounding on stage, shouting hello to Des Moines, Iowa and... Chicago, a reference to the rumor that Obama had supporters bussed down from Illinois. (The Obama people deny this.) Then he said that since Giuliani got Robertson's endorsement, "there's an 'amen' in every sentence he says, too."
The end of his speech was a fascinatingly -- almost disturbingly -- detailed fantasy about what would have happened if Biden had been president on 9/11 rather than Bush. He has clearly stayed up nights thinking about this. He would have called a meeting in Switzerland. He would have sent an energy bill to Congress. And, he would have said to Americans: "I DEMAND OF YOU that you support me... who in America would have said no?"
Also, he let us know that "I know most of these world leaders by their first names," but "not because I'm important." Oh, Joe.
Then, in the space of a few minutes, he said both that professional politicians "forget what makes average people tick" and that he once had discussion with Hillary Clinton's "great presidential husband, Bill Clinton" about "my very favorite contemporary poet," Seamus Haney.
(On that same note, after he was done, Nancy Pelosi, the emcee, got on stage and said, "I recommend his newest translation of 'Beowulf' for those of you who may be interested." Of course.)
About Swampland
Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column. Read more
Senior Writer Karen Tumulty has been TIME's National Political Correspondent since 2001, and has also covered the White House and Congress for the magazine. A native of San Antonio, she is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, where her career choice has significantly lowered the average salary of her graduating class. But she gets lots of free magazines. Read more
Jay Newton-Small Jay Newton-Small covers politics for TIME. She has covered the Bush 43 White House and also Congress from the DeLay era to the present. And, yes, despite the misleading name SHE is a she. Read more
Michael Scherer is a correspondent in TIME's Washington bureau covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He has worked national assignments for Mother Jones magazine and Salon.com. Read more
Amy Sullivan is a senior editor at TIME magazine, and author of the book The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap (Scribner, 2008). A Michigan native, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School. She writes about religion and politics for TIME, but no longer answers to the name "Bible Girl." Read more
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