CONSERVATIVE INSTA-REACTION….I consider The Corner to be a peek into the conservative id, so I was curious to see what they had to say about Joe Biden before the message machine kicks in. Here it is in a nutshell:
The 3 am text message announcement was a subtle dig at Hillary; Biden’s a blowhard; he thinks he’s smarter than you; it’s “the most self-loving ticket ever”; he’s a plagiarist; he’s a pro-choice Catholic, just like John Kerry; he doesn’t represent change; he’s unpopular in Iraq.
That’s pretty weak brew. I’m sure it’ll get better and nastier over time, though, as they get over the fact that, as near as I can tell, some of them actually have sort of a grudging admiration for the guy. Still, the golden rule in attack politics is that you need something new: the blowhard/plagiarism/he-said-Obama-wasn’t-ready-to-be-president stuff is old news, and the media almost certainly won’t give it more than a little bit of play. The question is, can the wingers take this stuff and somehow roll it up into something that seems fresh, the way the Swift Boaters did with John Kerry’s Vietnam service? If they can, then the media will start to play along.