A dozen faces fall in unison as Biden lectures on. "You've not been good to me. You're also damn selfish. You better listen to me..." It goes on like this for a couple of minutes. Strangely, Biden keeps grinning--even fraternally slapping the stunned man's shoulder a couple of times. When we finally head into the building, Biden's communications director, Norm Kurz, turns to me. "What you just witnessed is classic Senator Biden."

Meet the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Democratic Party's de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism. No other Democrat has been as visible in the weeks since September 11, and Biden, who began promoting himself almost immediately after the attacks, is likely to speak, for the foreseeable future, for a party lacking in foreign policy experts. That's good news for a man who is thinking seriously about running for president in 2004. But is it good for the Democratic Party? Biden is tough and he's an internationalist. Unfortunately he's also legendary for speaking impulsively and leaving others to clean up the mess. "He lacks the filter," says one Democratic strategist. Or as a senior Senate foreign policy aide put it: "Biden is an unguided missile." Not exactly the persona you want out front when the country is at war.

It's late afternoon, and Biden sits at a conference table with Kurz in his hideaway office near the Senate floor. He cracks open a Caffeine-Free Diet Coke as he waits for a Judiciary Committee staffer to help him prepare for a CNN interview on the anti-terrorism bill. Unexpectedly, a call comes in from Attorney General John Ashcroft. Biden picks up the phone and greets Ashcroft like an old Elks lodge buddy. "Hey John, Joe. Howyadoin' pal? What's the sticking points, and tell me if I can be helpful." All day, reporters had been buzzing that Ashcroft wanted to cut a deal with a Democrat, perhaps Biden, to circumvent the stubborn Judiciary Committee chairman, Pat Leahy. But Biden won't bite. "I'm happy to help," he tells Ashcroft. "But I don't want to inadvertently become...a separate negotiation here, kind of thing."

Time is short, however; CNN awaits. Delaware's senior senator has been doing a lot of television lately--from an interview with Peter Jennings in the first hours after the attacks to an appearance on "Larry King Live" the night of the first retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan. Other media beckon. "Are we still getting the daily Larry King, Matthews calls?" Biden asks. "You're getting everybody. Larry King, Matthews, Greta," Kurz replies. It must be heaven for the senator: There is nothing he loves more than a captive audience.

Speech is at once Biden's great strength and his great weakness. As a presidential candidate in 1987 he brought audiences to tears with his stump speeches about reclaiming the lost dream of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Then his campaign imploded when he was caught plagiarizing from British Labour Party head Neil Kinnock. On the Senate floor this spring he delivered one of the most powerful Democratic critiques of Bush's tax cut. "This is about values," Biden thundered. "I have never had it so starkly and honestly stated on this floor. What do we value as Americans?" And when Biden spoke before a meeting of Democratic senators shortly after the September 11 attacks, to explain the importance of the use-of-force authorization he had helped craft, he received a standing ovation. Afterward California Senator Barbara Boxer approached Biden to say, "Thank God you're here."