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A warm congratulations to Senator Joe Biden on his VP candidate position on the Democratic ticket!

Sen. Biden called me to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq in April 2004, when there was heavy fighting between the Mahdi Army and the US military. He did so on the basis of a journal article I had written on the Sadr Movement in the Middle East Journal, which he had read. That knocked my socks off. People in Washington don’t often read journal articles. It struck me as the sort of thing that should happen in our democracy every day– you write something in your specialty, and your elected representative calls you to talk about it. No lobbies, think tanks, etc. involved.

So it was a positive impression! And in the hearing he was informed and articulate.

I want to say something about the tag line in the mainstream press about Sen. Biden’s alleged tendency to commit gaffes.

We have had a president for nearly 8 years who has committed almost nothing but gaffes, every day, all day. The corporate media typically forgive Bush for this and don’t even often bring it up. Why is it that it is an issue for Biden but not for Bush? Could it be that corporate media is owned by . . . Republicans?

When Biden ascends to these heights of malaproprism, then we can talk about it: