Joe Biden

Not counting rumors that Anthony Weiner's marriage has hit a rocky patch, it may be the worst-kept secret in politics: Joe Biden wants to be president. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the vice president's inner circle is swabbing the decks, battening down the hatches and hoisting the mainsails for USS Bidenpalooza 2016. "Everyone involved in his world," a Democratic official told the Journal, "is engaged in taking all the steps that make sense to prepare for a run, if he does run. " Mr. Biden's people are apparently willing to go for it even if the allegedly inevitable nominee, Hillary Clinton, decides to run. Why is this happening?

Sept. 11, 2001 changed us in many ways. Suddenly, a post-cold war America was again at war, this time with radical Islam. Many of us did not realize that our terrorist enemies had been at war with us for many years. Soon, American special forces were on the ground in Afghanistan assisting the moderates known as the "Northern Alliance. " Shortly thereafter, we were back in Iraq - this time to destroy Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a mission never accomplished.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In 2003, when Howard Dean named "guns, God and gays" as Southern obsessions and said he wanted to work for the white guys with Confederate flag stickers on their pickup trucks, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware must have seen Jesus. Now he's gone one better. To the litany of political pandering, Mr. Biden has added a new invocation: slavery. As in, "Hey! I'm from a slave state, too!" Those weren't his precise words, but Mr. Biden, who is considering a run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has been working hard lately to liberate his inner bubba, twice mentioning that his home state was once a slave state.

One of the enduring misperceptions of American politics is that the vice presidency is a steppingstone to the presidency. Of the 47 men who have held the office, only four were elected to the Oval Office as sitting standbys: Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren and, 152 years later, the senior George Bush. And, of these, only Jefferson was given a second term. This bit of history has not discouraged the widespread impression that the individual "a heartbeat away" from the presidency has some kind of leg up on competitors for the office.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, whose bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination was short-circuited by ethical questions, is scheduled to hop on an early morning plane to Manchester, N.H., Sunday to speak at a brunch and march in a belated St. Patrick's Day parade. As an Irish-American in good standing, Mr. Biden's participation in a St. Paddy's parade would cause no uplifted eyebrows anywhere but in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary, where no national politician can set foot without fanning speculation of White House aspirations.

DENVER - As Joe Biden tells it, there was a time his family was rolling in money. His grandfather, Joseph H. Biden of Baltimore, was an executive with the American Oil Co. Joe's father spent summers with a cousin, Bill Sheen Jr., whose family estate was in the Baltimore hunt country. "My dad grew up well polished by gentlemanly pursuits. He would ride to the hounds, drive fast, fly airplanes. He knew good clothes, fine horses, the newest dance steps," Biden wrote in Promises to Keep, a campaign memoir published last year.

Barack Obama, Democrat (with Joe Biden) John McCain, Republican (with Sarah Palin) Cynthia McKinney, Green (with Rosa Clemente) Bob Barr, Libertarian (with Wayne A. Root) Ralph Nader, Independent (with Matt Gonzalez) Chuck Baldwin, Constitution (with Darrell L. Castle)

Everyone knows there will be a movie made about the death of Osama bin Laden. But who will play whom? Conan O'Brien has the answers:  (Spoiler alert: Joe Biden will be played by Bob Barker.)   

Tonight Convention keynote address by former Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia. Headliner: Sen. Hillary Clinton Additional speakers include: House Democratic Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, dean of Senate women. Tomorrow Nomination of Sen. Barack Obama and vice presidential nominee. Headliner: Vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden Additional speakers include: Former President Bill Clinton and 2004 presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.

The Sun's recent editorial on guns laws ("Resigned to guns," Sept. 25) should have added a picture of Joe Biden and his advice to buy a shotgun from last February. I am sure the victims of the Navy Yard incident would appreciate our vice president's advice. But since it is un-PC to say anything bad about a Democrat, no chance of that happening. Lyle Rescott, Marriottsville

The Sun's recent editorial on guns laws ("Resigned to guns," Sept. 25) should have added a picture of Joe Biden and his advice to buy a shotgun from last February. I am sure the victims of the Navy Yard incident would appreciate our vice president's advice. But since it is un-PC to say anything bad about a Democrat, no chance of that happening. Lyle Rescott, Marriottsville

Vice President Joe Biden will visit the Port of Baltimore today as part of a tour of East Coast ports seeking federal money to accommodate increased freight expected from the Panama Canal in coming years. The White House said last week Biden would add Baltimore to an earlier announced line up of visits to the ports of Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. Biden is scheduled later this month to visit Panama, where an expansion of the canal is expected to be completed in 2015. Biden's trip was announced days after the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Baltimore a $10 million grant to build more access to rail, expand storage at Fairfield Marine Terminal, and help widen the channel at Seagirt Marine Terminal.

Not counting rumors that Anthony Weiner's marriage has hit a rocky patch, it may be the worst-kept secret in politics: Joe Biden wants to be president. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the vice president's inner circle is swabbing the decks, battening down the hatches and hoisting the mainsails for USS Bidenpalooza 2016. "Everyone involved in his world," a Democratic official told the Journal, "is engaged in taking all the steps that make sense to prepare for a run, if he does run. " Mr. Biden's people are apparently willing to go for it even if the allegedly inevitable nominee, Hillary Clinton, decides to run. Why is this happening?

Secretary of State John Kerry still has a long way to go in his intensive quest for Palestinian-Israeli peace. But his diligent and persuasive pursuit of it suggests that his uneven career search for a legacy of his own may finally have found its proper track. The decorated Vietnam War veteran who first won prominence as a vocal critic of that war went on to be a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and in 2004 the Democratic presidential nominee. But he was denied the presidency in a brutal political smearing of that honored service as a Navy swift boat commander.

Regarding Gov. Martin O'Malley's political action committee, it just goes to show - P. T. Barnum was right ( "O'Malley raising, spending money on national races," Aug. 1). I would bet heavily that The Sun personnel are right in there with him. Mr. O'Malley for president? It's so absurd one almost might laugh if it wasn't so tragic. I hate to say it, but even Joe Biden would be better for the country. F. Cordell, Lutherville

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012, is scheduled to speak in Baltimore on Thursday at the Maryland Republican Party's annual Red, White and Blue Dinner. Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee, is seen as a leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. The Red, White and Blue Dinner is the state party's largest fundraiser of the year. Previous speakers include Ryan's 2012 running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican strategist Karl Rove.

Regarding Gov. Martin O'Malley's political action committee, it just goes to show - P. T. Barnum was right ( "O'Malley raising, spending money on national races," Aug. 1). I would bet heavily that The Sun personnel are right in there with him. Mr. O'Malley for president? It's so absurd one almost might laugh if it wasn't so tragic. I hate to say it, but even Joe Biden would be better for the country. F. Cordell, Lutherville

Your editorial writers must have seen a different vice presidential debate than I did between Rep. Paul Ryan and an aging Joe Biden ("Biden connects," Oct. 14). I had assumed that Mr. Biden, because of his advanced age, would have been courteous and a gentleman, while the much younger Mr. Ryan would have been aggressive to the point of bad manners. Instead, it was exactly opposite. Whatever points Mr. Biden might have made, this was not an individual that you would want to entertain at your dining room table, much less listen to. While the election is not a popularity contest, Mr. Ryan delivered his comments with grace and dignity while the constantly interrupting Mr. Biden came across as terminally rude and out of control.

Is the Iraq war to blame for the mess we are in? Now, I should qualify that question by explaining "mess" and "we. " By "mess," I mean the dawn of Barack Obama's second term, the predictably catastrophic rollout of Obamacare, the exploding debt and deficit, the stimulus boondoggles, etc. By "we," I mean conservatives (particularly those, like me, who supported the war), but also anyone else who doesn't think President Obama has done a bang-up job. There seems to be a growing consensus that the answer to that question is "yes.

I can hear 'em now. "He's a good guy"; "He's a family man"; "He'll govern like a moderate"; "It will be so good for the country"; "He's post-partisan. " That the election of a mixed-race candidate for president sent positive messages about America around the world is without question; that the election occurred less than 50 years after the end of Jim Crow was stunning - and spoke volumes about how far we have progressed on race and politics. Yet, the entire post-partisan narrative was quite a stretch (and silly to boot)