Kiss This Thing Goodbye
The Hidden Columnists--David Brooks Edition

You can pretty much say goodbye to your presidential aspirations if you're a Democrat and you've got the NYTimes resident conservative David Brooks defending you after a tough week.
I saw a prelude to this on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer on Friday during Brooks' discussion with columnist Mark Shields. It was Shields who noted that Biden had now taken the Clinton 1988 Democratic Convention Speech award for longest and most bloviating rhetoric, with Brooks coming to defend him briefly (here's the page with the video of their Friday appearance). (I would do a rough transcription, but it seems all the audio capabilities from Real and Windows Media Player have disappeared from my Mac--looks like I'll be visiting my local Apple Store's Genius Bar, or rebuilding my system from scratch).

Anyhoo, here are some selection from the column, In Praise of Joe Biden (fully available to Times Select subscribers):

I rise to defend Joe Biden, who is being attacked for his verbosity during the Alito confirmation hearings. Some have concluded that Biden is a blowhard, though I assert he is thoughtful, just at Wagnerian length.

After years of study, I have come to recognize that it is wrong to regard Biden's committee room interventions as questions. They are senatorial arias of immense emotional range. At times he will ascend to heights of rage and contempt; at other times he will wander like Lear through the desolation of undesirable policies.

At one moment, he will lean in toward the witness like a late-night drinking buddy and share some intimate truth. At the next moment - and this is when he is at his best - he will play the beaten warrior, battered but unbowed. In this twilight mood, his voice grows husky and his shoulders slump. He knows that some nominee or bill is about to roll over him, but like the last Spartan at Thermopylae, he registers his noble objection before succumbing manfully to the inexorable will of fate.

Then he flashes his jarring grin, which says that we are all friends despite the circumstances of our disagreement.

[...]

It's no wonder some senators turn into bloated Hindenburg versions of themselves. It's no wonder that some members enter the Senate dining room as if accompanied by the blare of trumpets. It's no wonder some suffer from logorrhea dementia, the malady of being driven insane by the act of talking too much.

But despite occasional appearances, Joe Biden is not this way. It is true the man has no speed bumps between his brain and his mouth. But this only makes him more candid. And by making candor the core of his self-image, he has preserved the ability to think independently and to be honest with himself. Some public figures are no longer able to create their own beliefs, and just believe those talking points it is useful for them to believe. But Biden, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes profane, always overlong, is still a real person, and a genuinely nice one - and he has been in the Senate since age 30, almost his whole adult life.

The Senate is filled with bright, charismatic, ambitious people who somehow became caught in the waiting room to greatness. But it is my favorite Washington institution because of personalities so electric they have resisted the pressure to become marbleized. There is the kind and decent Lugar, the joyful warrior McCain, the unprepossessing Graham, the courageous Lieberman and the graceful Sununu and Obama, among others.

Biden is one of those people who make the Senate interesting and even serious. He wouldn't have the same facility for talking honestly if he didn't give himself so much marathon-length practice.