Assessing Biden: Snore

(By Jim Geraghty, National Review Online) - I don't think I've ever heard a more predictable speech by a candidate on a major party ticket. That's not quite the same as a bad speech, but I'm reminded of a joke I heard from Obama about two years ago. "We've reached the point where everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone who needs to say it has said it."

The predictable pudding that lacked a theme:

America has never had it worse, nevermind the "malaise" and hostage crisis of the Carter years, the chaos of the late 60s, the Great Depression, the Civil War... an increase in the median income, an unchanged, and a drop in the uninsured in the past year are additional signs of impending irreversible catastrophe.

George W. Bush and John McCain are the same.

We have no allies anymore. Only electing Obama will make the world love us again.

The surge didn't happen. Iraq is endless chaos. Obama's 16 month withdrawal plan will fix everything.

Community organizing on the South Side is perfect training to be president. A nuclear weapons bill that passed by unanimous consent is the major legislative accomplishment of our time.

There was nothing in this speech that was surprising. Nothing that Biden hasn't said a thousand times before. If you've been covering him since the beginning of this race, this was every one of Biden's campaign speeches put in a blender, with some of his surrogate work he's done since Obama won the nomination thrown in for spice.

I suppose if someone in America had never encountered Joe Biden before, they might have liked his combativeness. I've liked it at times in the past. But tonight, Biden was... reheated leftovers.