Sen. Barack Obama’s choice of long-time Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware is both bizarre and telling. First, Obama has embraced someone who is an institutional man of the U.S. Senate, who has served since there since he was 31 years old and has done nothing else in his life but be a politician. So much for the “change we  can believe in.”

Second, Sen. Obama has chosen someone who fundamentally disagrees with his qualifications for being President and who says better things about their opponent, Sen. John McCain.

Aside from the wealth of video clips that will emerge showing Biden talking and talking and talking and saying some rather silly things, (Our favorite – “You can’t walk into an Dunkin Donuts or a 7-11 without hearing an Indian accent.”), Biden has differed significantly with the war in Iraq and in foreign affairs issues in general.  In Iraq, Biden said at the time, “we have no choice but to eliminate the threat” from Iraq.  Obama was sitting in the Illinois State Senate at the time, missing votes but telling anyone that cared that he thought the war was a bad idea. Biden also supported giving more funds to the troops, even after he has soured on the conduct of the war and criticized Obama for trying to cut those resources.

Biden has also shown the good sense to reject meeting with crazed dictators “without preconditions” something Obama believes he can do without giving the store away.

But Biden does serve one purpose, he reinforces the liberal, big government, “one-world” approach that Obama so deftly preaches. Like Obama, Biden believes much of the U.S. foreign and military policy must be filtered through the channels of the United Nations. Biden is another one of those Democrats who is  obsessed with being “liked” by Europeans who want Americans to sit up and behave until someone has to put on a uniform and die for their freedom.

Both Biden and Obama oppose drilling off the continenal shelf, oppose expansion of nuclear power and believe higher taxes on income, savings and capital is the way to solve most of this country’s problems.

The biggest challenge for this ticket would be joint appearances. The wrestling over the microphone could be considered an Olympic sport when this Election is over.