Senator Joseph Robinette Biden, Where Art Thou?

Last Thursday, in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood from her wounded campaign, Senator Hillary! Rodham Clinton delivered one of the best political retorts ever. Sadly, Hillary! has the oratorical skill of a hare-lipped third-grader on helium, so she turned a chicken salad line into chicken shit. She even got booed.

She remarked that Senator Obama, who has admitted to borrowing the speeches of Governor Deval Patrick (D-Sedan DeVille), was not offering "...change we can believe in; [but rather]...change we can Xerox."

Now, riddle me this, Batman. How, in the name of all that is holy, can Senator B. Hussein Obama get away with straight-up plagiarism when a similar occurrence derailed the Presidential campaign of Senator Joe Biden? (Biden, it seems, had borrowed from Neil Kinnock, always giving him credit for the lines. Except once, when cameras were present, and Senator Biden forgot to attribute the lines to Kinnock. This was caught by the Dukakis Campaign and Biden was done.)

Is it because the public today is more ignorant than they were back in 1988? Probably.

Is it because Hillary is less likable than former Governor Michael Stanley Dukakis (D-Greek Immigrants)? Most assuredly.

Is it because we, as a nation, have a nasty case of White Guilt? Absoeffinglutely.

I am not saying that Senator B. Hussein Obama is not a smart man. He is. And, one day, he may be qualified to hold the highest office in the land. But, the fact remains that he has run (wisely) a campaign of platitudes and promises, punctuated by the fact that he is a charismatic (and handsome, to some people) black man, supported by a charming (and, to some people, beautiful black woman) wife.

Opposing him is a grizzled, scandal-plagued veteran of many nasty campaigns--Senator John Sidney McCain, III--and Senator Hillary!.

In our vapid, substance-free, diversity-driven, educationally-shortchanged society, Obama is like 24's President David Palmer. Except that Dennis Haysbert, the actor who portrayed President Palmer is probably more prepared to be POTUS than Senator Obama.

And, there is the rub. Obama gets away with avoiding substance because he is more likable than Hillary! A better orator than Hillary! A better actor than Hillary!

But, truly, if we all were sold a bill of goods by the media's anointing of Senator McCain, shouldn't we also be equally skeptical of the media's pronouncement of Senator Obama's inevitability? Shouldn't we actually look, not at the Senator's words--well, Governor Patrick's words, as delivered by Senator Obama--but at his record, what he supports, what he believes in.

He has a paper trail, and he sometimes speaks the truth about his convictions (e.g., family income of $75,000.00 = wealthy; or, the U.S. taking unilateral action in Pakistan if they won't). Asking him difficult questions is not wrong. It is not racist to challenge him on his inexperience or lack of substance.

If Senator Obama truly stands for change we can believe in, then he needs to tell us what it is that he believes.