[Hannah]: On Politicians, and Talking

From Robert Draper, at GQ, musing on kindly old blowhard Joe Biden:

Sometimes as a reporter, a question falls out of your mouth like a gumball tumbling out of a machine and there is nothing you would not give in this world for the opportunity to take that question back. In this case, the question was something like, “Senator, what informed your decision to support the congressional resolution giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq?” Which, in its inadvisability, was akin to a question I believe I asked George W. Bush in 1998: “Governor, what exactly is wrong with our educational system in Texas? And be sure and include everything you know about phonics in your answer.”

I popped this Iraq question to Biden just as we were boarding a train in Union Station. By the time we disembarked in Wilmington seventy-five minutes later, he was still answering it. He continued his explanation in the car, then in a restaurant, and I believe he would still be nearing his peroration had his wife Jill finally not arrived on the scene. So I’m with the Washington Post columnist: Watching the leonine Biden confined to the teleprompter, you want to bust out into a mournful “Boooorn Free…as free as the wind blows…”